A FESTIVAL OF OFFSETS

Applying the wisdom of the very offset Gore-meister







If anybody is not sure what the third cartoon above refers to, see my fourth post yesterday.





DDT Backlash Begins

The usual Greenie misrepresentations

Seven months after the World Health Organization reversed its deadly 30-year ban on the use of DDT to fight malaria, the anti-DDT movement is up to its old tricks. "South African medical researchers have reported alarming evidence of low sperm counts and other damage to the male reproductive system linked to the use of the pesticide DDT in anti-malaria spray campaigns," reported the Mercury/Independent Online (South Africa) on April 12. The lead researcher told Mercury that there is sufficient evidence to be concerned about the health impacts of DDT and to consider moving toward safer alternative methods for malaria control.

To be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Andrology, the study compared levels of DDT and its metabolites in the blood of 311 South African men aged 18 to 40 with the quantity and quality of their semen. The men were selected from three communities where malaria is endemic and DDT is sprayed to control mosquitoes. "Laboratory analysis showed abnormally low sperm counts, lower semen volumes, slower-moving sperm and fewer viable sperm," reported the Mercury. "The results imply that non-occupational exposure to DDT is associated with impaired seminal parameters in men."

The only thing that actually appears "impaired," as far as I can tell, is the researchers' willingness to communicate what they actually found - precisely nothing. Before going into their specific results, it's necessary to have a basic understanding of the sort of statistical analysis they undertook.

The researchers conducted a so-called "regression analysis" to evaluate the nature of any statistical relationships between blood levels of DDT and various characteristics of the men's semen/sperm. The key result in this type of analysis is called the "beta." In the context of these analyses, a non-zero beta (either positive or negative) means that a statistical relationship between DDT levels and sperm characteristics was observed, while a beta of zero means no relationship was observed. The greater the beta is (either positive or negative), the stronger the statistical association; the closer to zero, the weaker the statistical relationship.

The sign (positive or negative) of the beta indicates the direction of the relationship: A negative beta indicates decreasing semen/sperm quality with increasing blood DDT while a positive sign indicates the opposite. Keep in mind that statistical relationships do not necessarily represent actual biological or cause-and-effect relationships.

For semen volume and blood DDT, the researchers reported a beta of -0.0005, meaning that they measured a very slight decline in semen volume with increasing blood DDT levels. But this beta result is so close to zero - and statistically insignificant, to boot - that it cannot constitute evidence of a relationship between semen volume and DDT exposure.

Though the researchers reported a beta of -27.63 for DDT and sperm motility, this result was also not statistically significant, meaning it could have occurred simply by chance. The likelihood that this beta is a spurious result is strengthened by the fact that the average sperm motility of the study subjects was within the standards of normalcy as determined by the World Health Organization.

In terms of sperm count, the results were, if anything, self-contradictory. While the beta for the DDT metabolite known as DDE was a statistically insignificant -0.0003, the beta for DDT was 0.0022 - meaning that sperm counts slightly increased with greater levels of blood DDT. Both betas, however, are so close to zero that, once again, they are probably meaningless. For the final sperm endpoint mentioned in The Mercury article, sperm viability, the researchers reported betas of -0.6571 and -1.7258 for DDE and DDT, respectively. But neither result was statistically significant.

Not only have these researchers failed to statistically link DDT with harm to semen/sperm - let alone have they linked the two biologically - their study flies in the face of a couple of key touch points with reality.

First, there weren't any reproductive health issues among the men studied, with the researchers acknowledging that the semen/sperm characteristics were either within or close to World Health Organization standards.

Next, despite the past widespread use of DDT, no prior studies credibly link DDT with semen/sperm problems. Keep in mind that the period of heaviest use of DDT in the U.S. and other Western countries - the years 1946 to 1960, when DDT was indiscriminately applied all over the place - coincides precisely with the "baby boom" generation. If DDT use harms sperm, one can hardly prove it by the worldwide proliferation of boomers.

This study represents the vanguard of the coming backlash against the WHO's lifting of the DDT ban by anti-DDT environmental activists who are advocating an international treaty that would essentially ban DDT once and for all.

The study authors, in fact, give away their anti-DDT bias by their favorable reference to the dubious works of well-known anti-chemical, eco-activist researchers including "Our Stolen Future" author Theo Colburn; the University of Missouri's Frederick vom Saal; the University of Florida's Louis Guillette; and the University of Copenhagen's Neils Skakkebaek.

Last year, the WHO bravely moved to rectify one of the greatest tragedies in public health by lifting its DDT ban. The mosquito-killer has proven to be the most effective tool against malaria, a disease that annually kills 1 million children, sickens hundreds of millions and reduces economic development in poverty-stricken regions of the world. It would be a shame if junk science is once against used to thwart the desperately needed use of DDT.

Source




British eco-imperialism

The UN Security Council this week held its first ever debate on climate change and the potential threat that global warming poses to international security. British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett, who chaired the meeting, organised the open session to highlight what she called the `security imperative' to tackle climate change. According to Beckett, climate change can exacerbate problems that cause conflicts and threaten the entire planet. She was clearly very pleased with the UK-led initiative, stating that: `This is a groundbreaking day in the history of the Security Council, the first time ever that we will debate climate change as a matter of international peace and security.' (1)

Not all the Council members agreed with her. The UK, currently holding the rotating council presidency, had to undertake a lot of `behind closed doors' lobbying to even get the Council to agree to hold the open session (2). Even so, the discussion was marked by strong disagreements over whether the Security Council had the authority to deal with the issue of global warming and, as expected beforehand, no resolution was reached.

China's deputy ambassador, Liu Zhenmin, was blunt in rejecting the session: `The developing countries believe the Security Council has neither the professional competence in handling climate change - nor is it the right decision-making place for extensive participation leading up to widely acceptable proposals.' Russia also warned that the Council, whose mandate is only peace and security, was not the place to take concrete action on climate change (3).

The main argument raised against Beckett's proposal was that the Security Council was stepping on to the territory of more democratic bodies, such as the UN General Assembly. The two major groups representing developing countries - the Nonaligned Movement and the Group of 77 - wrote separate letters accusing the Security Council of `ever-increasing encroachment' on the role and responsibility of other UN bodies such as the 192-member General Assembly (4).

However, none of the participants in the debate challenged the substance of Beckett's argument that climate change posed a major risk to international peace and security. The opposition from some of the Security Council's permanent members and from many other states was posed in terms of the Security Council's authority and mandate to deal with such an extensive issue. It would seem that even those states which spoke in favour of Beckett's position, including the EU members and Japan, were less concerned with the substance of the argument than the desire to prioritise the issue of climate change itself. This was also clearly the case for UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, who hopes that the higher profile given to the relationship between climate change and global conflict will lead the member states to support his initiative to create a new UN Environmental Organisation, in an effort to coordinate action on climate change (5).

Even in the case of the UK, which has been so keen to push the link between climate change and global security, the substance of the argument appears to be of little importance. It is as if any important issue must be, of its very nature, a security risk in our globalised and interconnected world; it seems that every threat is so great that only the concerted action of the world's governments can deal with it. The UK has been keen to situate itself in the forefront of campaigning on climate change and Margaret Beckett argued some weeks ago that she hoped that the UN Security Council discussion would `foster a shared understanding of the way in which climate stress is likely to amplify other drivers of conflict and tension. This can only strengthen the commitment of the international community to the collective action that we urgently need.' (6)

It would appear that the substantive evidence for linking climate change with conflict is secondary to the concern that urgent collective action is taken. Beckett hinted as much in her speech to business organisations in New York the day before the UN Security Council debate: `[T]he, perhaps rather sad, truth is that the international community will not move with the necessary urgency or the necessary resolve if climate change is seen as primarily something that affects insects, animals and plants. To steal a slogan from Amnesty International, we need to show that tackling climate change is about saving the human.' (7)

For Beckett, the key issue is not so much the link between climate change and global conflict but the government's desire to take the international moral high ground in stressing the urgency of action in relation to climate change. It is this that has driven Beckett to engage in presenting climate change as a global security threat. She says: `Particularly over the past year, I have discussed the link between climate and security with many people. Some of them are sceptical. They respond that we can't prove that climate change will lead to this or that particular event - still less that it will cause any one outbreak of violence or hostilities. But that is to misunderstand the issue and the argument. If you are looking for a simple, linear connection between climate change and a particular flashpoint, you are only picking up a glimpse of a much wider picture. The implications of climate change for our security are more fundamental and comprehensive than any single conflict.' (8)

Beckett is clearly not, in fact, arguing that climate change causes conflict in any direct or straightforward way open to evidence-based debate. As the Guardian notes, `Britain refuses to site [sic] examples of global warming-related conflicts' (9). The reason for this obvious: it is not possible to substantiate a linkage between global warming and conflict. Even the alarmist CNA Corporation report, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change - released the day before the UN Security Council meeting, in which 11 former senior US generals, including Anthony Zinni, retired chief of Central Command, and Gordon Sullivan, formerly the US army's most senior general, called on the Bush administration to do more to tackle climate change - does not make any clear or direct links, despite arguing that `climate change is a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world' (10).

The generals' report links climate change to conflict only in the most non-specific and indirect terms: `Projected climate change will seriously exacerbate already marginal living standards in many Asian, African and Middle Eastern nations, causing widespread political instability and the likelihood of failed states.' (11) From the generalised nature of the report and its focus on poor and marginal societies, it is clear that the problem it highlights is not climate change as such, but rather the political, economic and social context upon which climate change may have an impact. To see climate change or resource shortages as a cause of conflict would involve depoliticising conflict and naturalising social and economic conditions in the countries under analysis (12).

Even given that there can be no direct link between climate change and conflict, the report gives very little concrete evidence of conflicts in which climate change can be held to have played a major role. It admits that, despite its importance, `no recent wars have been waged solely over water resources' and that `even tense disputes and resource crises can be peacefully overcome' (13). When the report does venture a few cursory attempts to claim examples where resource scarcity is held to be a contributing factor - Rwanda, `furthered by violence over agricultural resources', `the situation in Darfur, which has land resources at its root', the 1970s overthrow of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie `through his government's inability to deal with food shortages', and the 1974 Nigerian coup `that resulted largely from an insufficient response to famine' (14) - it is clear that the meaning and consequences of resource scarcity are social and political questions, not ones of environmental science, and certainly not ones liable to be ameliorated by any reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.

Beckett follows a similar approach to that of the CNA report in grouping a wide-range of problems together, including those of resource scarcity, land erosion, energy supplies and food production and distribution. Once these social, economic and political problems are reframed in terms of natural resources then she is able to proclaim that we should: `Think of the world today, then, as a dangerously simmering pot. An unstable climate risks that pot boiling over. And we ignore that risk - literally - at our peril.' (15) Of course, if the risks are so great, the cause is ever more vital and heroic: `Now it is time for us to rise to our newest and biggest challenge: to fight the first great war of interdependence, the struggle for climate security.' (16)

Underneath the Churchillian rhetoric that Beckett uses to declare that climate change is a `gathering storm', comparable to the threat posed by Nazi Germany in an earlier era, lies an attempt to re-establish the UK's moral and political standing in the world - not through old-fashioned militarism but through what the government clearly believes to be the UK's strongest card: the power of rhetoric.

Source




Britain's trains -- what the Greenies are wishing on us all

And you thought wobbly old Amtrak was bad!

A week ago a return Virgin Train ticket for the 85 minute journey from Euston station, London, to Birmingham New Street cost me more than œ70 ($168). For the outward journey that bought a seat on a window side of the carriage; but rather than a window, the seat was up close and personal with a beige plastic wall. A pale yellow light allowed me to read, just. The seat-back table was stickier than a poodle dipped in custard. Across the PA came an announcement that at any time we "customers" could move into a first-class carriage, where we could pay an extra œ10 for the upgrade. Halfway through the journey a Virgin employee scuttled through the carriages with a plastic bag the size of a small piggery, into which we could chuck the remains of our snacks.

But Virgin is luxury compared with First Great Western. One journey from Oxford to London Waterloo was plastic-rubbish-bag-free. Customers stepped carefully over floor puddles of food and drink remains, or kicked them aside.

Now for the stations. London Euston, a destination for 55 million passengers a year, is to be demolished and redeveloped at a cost of œ250 million. Early publicity promises a "light and airy thoroughfare" to replace the grey floors and grey-block ceilings that match the grey, dive-bombing pigeons. A tribute to the Brutalist architectural philosophy of the 1960s when it was built, Euston was demolished this month in print by the columnist Richard Morrison, who wrote: "The design should never have left the drawing board - if, indeed, it was ever on a drawing board. It gives the impression of having been scribbled on the back of a soiled paper bag by a thuggish android with a grudge against humanity and a vampiric loathing of sunlight."

Euston is so depressed that even its lavatories have gone on strike. After my trip from Birmingham New Street - a grotesquely ugly station itself - customers were forced to hop and shuffle in line to enter the Euston ladies and gents. Two of the three gates, demanding 20 pence each, were out of order.

Ealing Broadway, west London - there's another wrist slasher of a station. Late last month I booked online for a journey to Oxford, with plans to pick up the ticket at a Fast Ticket machine at the station. With 15 minutes to spare, I discovered every Fast Ticket machine at Ealing Broadway carried an "out of order" sign, strangely reminiscent of those black felt-tip pens on brown cardboard pleas: "Help, down on my luck." The queue to buy tickets was 30 people long. With my train due in less than five minutes, one extra ticket counter was s-l-o-w-l-y opened and my ticket handed over.

Finally, the entirely lift-free Stratford-on-Avon. To board a train to London, customers must carry their bags from one platform up a flight of steps, across a bridge, and down another flight to reach the right platform.

More here




Australia: Melbourne's trains -- what the Greenies are wishing on us all

The frequent complaints about woeful service from Sydney and Brisbane trains are similar. The Melbourne service is provided by a private contractor. The Brisbane and Sydney services are directly run by their State governments



COMMUTERS using some of Melbourne's busiest inner and middle-suburban stations are being left behind on platforms because of overcrowding on the rail system. Hot spots across the network include West Footscray, Yarraville, Kensington, Prahran, Glenhuntly, Armadale and Hawksburn stations. A Connex spokeswoman said it received complaints from squashed and stranded passengers and said most of the problems were caused by late or cancelled services. But the Public Transport Users Association and Connex drivers told The Age that increasing numbers of passengers were being left at busy inner-suburban stations. The State Government's decision to scrap Zone 3 has also increased passengers travelling from outer-suburban stations.

Metlink chief executive Bernie Carolan said anecdotal evidence showed car parks at former Zone 3 stations were almost full. "Those car parks are more popular than ever," Mr Carolan said. Metlink has also seen a rise in tickets being sold at former Zone 3 stations. Almost 170 million trips were made on the suburban network last year - an increase of 13 per cent.

While more passengers from Melbourne's outer suburbs use public transport, commuters in the middle and inner suburbs are feeling the squeeze. Department of Infrastructure figures show the Cranbourne, Pakenham, Sydenham and Broadmeadows lines suffer the worst levels of overcrowding. Pressure on inner-city stations such as Kensington on the Broadmeadows services will increase after the opening of the electrification extension to Craigieburn later this year.

A Connex driver said it was common for trains during the evening peak to wait up to four minutes for passengers to squeeze on at City Loop stations such as Melbourne Central and Parliament. "It's great to see all these people using trains but the services are just inadequate," he said. "It's just getting ridiculous. There are some trains that they could virtually cancel and put them elsewhere. They've still got the same old tired timetable. Let's review the lines and see where people are living."

But as the operator of the system, Connex cannot purchase new trains and make changes to timetables or increase services without Government approval. The Department of Infrastructure's train plan from 2003, obtained by The Age, showed at least 60 new trains needed to be purchased to cope with increased patronage from 2009. PTUA president Daniel Bowen said the lack of planning by the Government for new trains "was bordering on incompetence".

His comments came after Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky confirmed that the Government had paid $100,000 for nine Hitachi carriages that were initially sold off in 2002 for $2600 each. "They should also be making better use of the existing fleet, ensuring that frequent services run beyond the current peak hours, to help spread passenger numbers," Mr Bowen said. "The people of Melbourne have spoken with their feet and they want more trains."

Ms Kosky defended the purchase and said the second-hand trains would allow for four extra services a day, capable of transporting another 3200 passengers. She would not be drawn on whether the Government would fund new trains in next week's state budget. Opposition public transport spokesman Terry Mulder said it was an appalling lack of planning and said passengers should not be surprised to find themselves soon travelling on steam engines.

Source

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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 generally 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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