Miserable, Cold, Wet Summer In France

Post below lifted from Blue Crab. See the original for links

Kind of interesting. France has had the third worst summer in recorded history, only 1954 and 1977 were more miserable. Most of the nation has been much wetter and considerably cooler than historical averages.

It's official: France's rainy, grey and generally cold summer has been the worst for the past 30 years, the weather service said Friday, but tourist arrivals were the highest in five years. July and August were wet across two-thirds of the country while the Mediterranean region was too dry, said Frederic Nathan, meteorologist at Meteo France. "Yes we can say that it was a rotten summer," said Nathan. But the summers of 1954 and 1977 were worse, he added..

..Rainfall in northwestern France reached record levels, with cities like Le Havre registering 21 days of rain in July, beating the previous record of 16 in 1980. In the northern city of Caen in Normandy, the weather service registered 592 hours of sunshine from May 1st to August 21, well below the average of 809 hours. Temperatures on the Atlantic coast have been on average two or three degrees Celsius below seasonal averages, said Jean-Marc Le Gallic from Meteo France.

Britain has also had a miserably wet and cold summer. Interesting, no?




The Return of the Old Gods: A Challenge to Green Evangelicals

"And the Lord spoke all these words:
I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.
(Exodus 20: 1-3)

Their names are Legion, for they are many; the Romans knew them as Juno, or Diana, or Ops. Freyr, Gerd, Idun, and Jord ruled the Norse, Dziewona and Mokosh were their names to the Slavs. The Hawaiians had Papa, the Aztecs Coatlicue, the Egyptians had Geb and Nut. The Celts had many: Cerunno, Cyhiraet, Druantia, Maeva. The ancient Canaanites had their Baal, who would cause so much trouble for the Israelites. They are all gods and goddesses of the earth, of nature, the old rulers of the ancient world. Far older than Christianity, older even than Hinduism, worship of nature gods is a cultural element shared by every race and tribe of Man since before recorded history. They are the gods of the worldly, the gods of the Fall.

Their demands have differed, their gifts have traditionally been good fortune, magic and fertility. Often earth gods have doubled as fertility gods, and sex has often been an integral part of Gaia worship. Their rule over the world of Man lasted a long, long time, stretching back into the mists of prehistory. That rule was broken, perhaps, on Mt. Sinai when an old man trudged down from the peak carrying stone tablets and castigating a people who had made for themselves a graven image. Carved onto those tablets was the Command quoted above, an admonition against the old gods of this Earth. To make the matter beyond dispute, it was further commanded of those ancient Hebrews:

"Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live. Any woman using unnatural powers or secret arts is to be put to death." (Exodus 22:18)

Those secret arts were the magical practices of the nature worshipping people. Much later, Saul, the first King of Israel, would be cursed with madness for consulting such a practitioner.

The end of the reign of the natural gods may have come when the Man of Galilee cast the demon Legion into swine, or when He was put to death on a tree, or when He rose from the dead.

It may have come when the Emperor Constantine dreamed his momentous vision of the crucifix with the words "in hoc signo vinces," which roughly translate "in this sign you will conquer." It may have come at every juncture, with the blood of every martyr who preached to the worshippers of Legion, of every toiler in a savage wilderness who built and prayed and fought to survive amidst those who would kill him. But the end came, and the old gods crept back into the realm of shadows to await their opportunity.

In 1890 Sir James Frazer published the first volume of The Golden Bough. Building on the myth-collecting work of anthropologists such as Lewis Morgan, Frazer made a serious effort to compare and classify the details of disparate myths originating in very different cultures worldwide. He concluded that mythology was a type of primitive science, an attempt to explain the universe and man's place in it. This was a break from the Enlightenment view that mythmaking was an ignorant superstition, unworthy of the man of reason. According to Jacques Barzun in his book From Dawn to Decadence:

"For 200 years myths had been dismissed as ignorant superstitions, now they were seen as expressions of important thought. That they were richly symbolic comforted both the Symbolist poets and the critics of materialism in science, while the rehabilitation of the primitive mind encouraged the renouncers of civilization. The western mind was experiencing one of its attacks of primitivism." [emphasis added]

This primitivism had been around for some time; certainly it can be seen in Thoreau`s Walden, and philosophically it lies at the heart of Rousseau`s utopian vision with the concept of the "noble savage" free from the encumbrances of modernity. Based on a denial of the concept of Original Sin, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, argued at the beginning of the 18th century that Man is in a far happier and freer state when not shackled by the "arbitrary" rules and customs of civilization. It was further advanced at that time by Sir Richard Steele, and can be seen to a limited degree in John Locke and later 18th century Philosophes. Certainly the celebrity of Benjamin Franklin is attributable in no small part to his "primitive" background as a humble "Quaker" colonist and yet brilliant man of science. (Franklin had been raised an Episcopalian, and was probably a Deist as an adult, but many in Europe assumed him a Quaker.) It was thought that Franklin's intelligence was born of his "savage" upbringing in the hinterland.

Primitivism and Utopianism lie at the heart of modern Liberalism, and most certainly are the roots of the Green movement; many Greens want to return the Earth to a mythical pristine paradise, to expunge the "plague" of industrialism and bring back the forgotten Eden which we have despoiled.

This Primitivism flies in the face of the Christian tradition of rationalism, the heritage of Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, William of Occam, Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, etc., and of the older Jewish tradition of scholarship and philosophy, as well as many of the Greek philosophers such as Aristotle. This Primitivism would find a home in the 19th century works of Nietzche with his belief in the self-willed Superman and his rejection of the intellect in favor of emotionalism. It would find a home in the psychological interests of Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung, who would seek after the unconscious "primitive" non-rational parts of the human psyche while curiously rejecting the God of the Bible. It would root itself in the irrational faith in Socialism that permeated the 19th century, a faith with no empirical basis. It would be at the heart of Nazism and Fascism, a belief in a fantasy golden age of the Volk, one ruled by the old gods who gave power to the Nation and who commanded the sacrifice of blood. It would be at the heart of the strange beliefs of Marxists who faithfully awaited the worker`s paradise.....

The goddess movement, such a large part of Wicca, leads naturally to Ecofeminism, the fusion of feminist thought with radical environmentalism. In short, earth worship is at the core of the modern environmentalist movement. Gaia Theory draws its name from the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth, and there is a touch of mysticism involved; the theory is that all life and the inorganic parts of the Earth are hopelessly interrelated to the point of forming a sort of berlife. Gaia theory is a major factor in the thinking of many environmentalists, and consequently looms large in the whole Global Warming debate.

So, too does socialism, that 19th century worship of blind economic processes, and the fusion of the two is called Ecosocialism. It is interesting to note the many socialists are involved in the "save the planet movement" -- most notably Mikhail Gorbachev, former dictator of the defunct Soviet Union. Why, one may ask, would environmentalism appeal to socialists? Every action of a human being has some affect on the environment. People must eat, which means someone must use land for farming, people must drink clean water, which means disturbing lakes, rivers, and wetlands, people must breathe which means exhaling the evil greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. By the very act of existence, a person necessarily disturbs his or her environment.

A doctrine which advocates the radical reorganization of civilization must find some impetus to compel people to make those radical changes. The promise of a future utopia was not enough to convince people to allow the communist yoke to remain around their necks, so the threat of extinction is being employed. We simply MUST force obedience to government if we are to survive! ....

Now the time has come for the environment, and Environmentalism is the perfect vehicle for promoting the materialist worldview. The sea change from conservationism to activist environmentalism occurred as a result of Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring. Before Carson, conservationists sought to preserve lands and forests, but the success of Carson's crusade to ban DDT -- which condemned millions of people in Third World countries to death by malaria -- led to the birth of a new movement, one which would use the courts, legal machinations, and traditional activist techniques to achieve specific environmental goals.

With the first Earth Day in 1970 the Left had a movement uniquely poised to damage free market economies worldwide, and both socialists and neo-pagans swarmed into the movement. The collapse of the Eastern Block in the `80's, followed by the rise of Global Warming theory, gave great impetus to those who believe in a command economy, as this movement had the means, the emotional appeal, and could be manipulated to produce the desired ends; the radical reorganization of Humanity.

So what we have witnessed in the Global Warming debate is a perfect storm of anti-Christian philosophies parading as science. Materialists, Socialists, and Left-leaning types found common cause with neo-pagans and anti-Christian spirituality to advocate a New World Order dressed as a movement to save the planet. A friendly media has nurtured and supported it, and it has advanced through a string of sacraments; separating trash, installing low wattage light bulbs, driving hybrid vehicles, etc. frightened by end-of-the-world scenarios by the prophets of doom while having the Green ethos inculcated in them through letter-writing campaigns and "Earth friendly" checklists. The Environmentalists, heavily financed by left-wing think tanks and environmental-activist organizations, are hurrying to push through Draconian emission standards and to stifle any debate-and that debate is plentiful, indeed.

This is not settled science, nor are scientists in agreement about this matter. Increasingly it is becoming obvious that the 1degree F warming we have witnessed in the last century is related to solar cycles. Many scientists have disagreed with this notion of Anthropogenic Global Warming from the beginning; we had the Statement by Atmospheric Scientists, The Oregon Petition, the Leipzig Petiton, and the Heidelberg Appeal. The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has a long list of scientists who have changed from believers into skeptics.

In fact, the consensus we are told exists among scientists appears to be largely hot air. Even Roger Revelle, one of the fathers of Global Warming theory and the man much touted by Al Gore in his mockumentary, came to, well, not disavow his theory, but to dismiss it as not any sort of credible threat to Mankind before he passed away. The reality is that a large body of science supports a different interpretation of the amazing 1degree rise in temperature; mainly, that normal cycles are at work. The Sun has been more active with extraordinary sunspot activity. A more active sun suggests a warmer sun, and a more active sun means a stronger solar wind to broom away cosmic rays, which means fewer clouds to reflect sunlight. Since the solar cycle has peaked the Earth`s albedo has increased, suggesting that Heinrick Svensmark`s theory about cosmic rays is correct....

Which brings us to the matter of Christian Environmentalism. The principal argument by Evangelicals is that the science is settled, that Man is causing an environmental catastrophe, and that, in the interest of being good stewards of God's creation, we should be active in keeping the Earth pristine. A number of Evangelical leaders have issued a statement calling for action on Global Warming, and have created an Evangelical environmental network. They base their thinking on Genesis 1:28-29:

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

Note that it says be fruitful and multiply, as well as replenish the earth and subdue it. It in no way mentions maintaining the Earth or saving it. In short, it does not call man to be God, and exercise Divine control for the sake of the natural world; on the contrary, it calls for Man to expand and improve things for man's benefit.

Environmentalist Christians are in a state of error in that they have placed their trust in the powers of Man rather than the absolute control of God. They rightly believe that we should not despoil nature, but this comes out of an arrogant belief in the divine powers of Man, while ignoring the fact that God is in control of things. The salvation of souls is the purpose of life, not the preservation of the lesser parts of creation, and environmentalist Christians have confused the issue, believing they are doing the Will of God when they are ultimately feeding their own egos......

This Green Evangelical attempt at "relevancy," this tossing of the ecumenical religious salad with a heavy dollop of green goddess dressing is more in line with the old-line liberal churches that long ago shook hands with the devil of Modernism. This is a turning away from the very principles on which Evangelicalism was founded. This is serving the creature over the Creator.

The Books of Daniel and Revelations both make it quite plain that environmental disasters come from the Almighty as punishment for Sin, and Christians are to have faith that God is in control. God was in control during Noah's flood, in the environmental plagues of Egypt, in the workings of Elijah, in the great storms and snake bites which plagued the early disciples. Biblically these things are from the Lord, yet Christian environmentalists refuse to accept the notion that God is firmly in charge. In many ways, this movement sets itself up in opposition to God`s purposes. In the Old Testament, God was quite severe when Israel worshipped strange gods; He made them wander in the desert for 40 years when they made a golden calf to worship as they were coming out of Egypt, and he exiled them for 70 years to Babylon when they worshipped the nature god Baal. He exiled them for 1,882 years for their acceptance of Pan Hellenism.

In the New Testament Jesus stated "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Environmentalism glorifies another god, an ancient serpent of the earth, one whose rule was broken with the coming of the Messiah. God is not amused by the acceptance of strange gods before Him. Why do the Green Evangelicals believe otherwise?

More here




Chickengreens of the upper crust

Since I've done my bit this morning to foster undifferentiated anxiety over global climate change, I feel that I have earned some skeptic-offsets that I can apply to bashing the chickengreens -- rich people who demand enormous sacrifices from not-rich people so as to reduce anthropogenic global warming, while dumping tons of carbon themselves to travel without having to rub elbows with the Great Unwashed. If you have access to today's Wall Street Journal, read "Living Large While Being Green" in today's "Wealth Report" column. If you do not have access, enjoy this fair use excerpt:

It's not easy being green -- especially if you're rich. With their growing fleets of yachts, jets and cars, and their sprawling estates, today's outsized wealthy have also become outsized polluters. There are now 10,000 private jets swarming American skies, all burning more than 15 times as much fuel per passenger as commercial planes. The summer seas are increasingly crowded with megayachts swallowing up to 80 gallons of fuel an hour.

Yet with the green movement in vogue, the rich are looking for ways to compensate for their carbon-dioxide generation, which is linked to global warming, without crimping their style. Some are buying carbon "offsets" for their private-jet flights, which help fund alternate-energy technologies such as windmills, or carbon dioxide-eating greenery such as trees. Others are installing ocean-monitoring equipment on their yachts. And a few are building green-certified mansions, complete with solar-heated indoor swimming pools....

Others say the efforts are little more than window-dressing, designed to ease the guilt of the wealthy or boost their status among an increasingly green elite. Environmentalists say that if the rich really wanted to help the environment, they would stop flying on private jets, live in smaller homes, and buy kayaks instead of yachts. "Carbon offsets and these other things are feel-good solutions," says Lester Brown, founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute. "I'm always interested in people who buy a carbon offset for their jet to fly between their four big homes. These kinds of programs postpone more meaningful action."

Either way, an increasing number of companies are launching programs designed to help the rich live large while staying green. Jets.com, a private jet service, plans to start a program in early September in partnership with the Carbon Fund. After they take a trip, customers will get a statement on their bills telling them how much carbon dioxide their flight emitted and what it would cost to buy offsets from the fund. The offsets are a bargain compared with the flights: A round-trip private-jet flight between Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Boston costs about $20,000. The offsets for the 13 metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted would cost about $74, the company says.

V1 Jets International, a jet charter company, rolled out its "Green Card" program that it says accentuates "the positive effect your flight emissions will have on the environment." The company calculates the total emissions from the trip and then buys a carbon offset from the Carbon Fund. "From a jet perspective, we have a responsibility to look after the damage that these planes do," says Andrew Zarrow, V1's president. The company also has created technologies designed to make flights more efficient by selling seats on "deadleg" trips -- flights that are returning empty from one-way trips.

A fully loaded Gulfstream G400 burns 100 gallons of fuel per passenger per hour. The comparable figure for a Boeing 777 is 6 gallons. Per hour, the Gulfstream dumps one ton of CO2 per passenger, compared to 0.06 tons for the Boeing. If you believe that incremental CO2 is driving changes in our climate which may lead to catastrophe, then there is simply no defense for routinely traveling by private jet.

Look, it is wonderful to fly by private jet, but it is also entirely unnecessary. Yes, celebrities particularly will bleat that it is uniquely burdensome for them to fly commercial, but that is basically hogwash. Twenty years ago one used to see celebrities and other wealthy people in the first class cabins of scheduled commercial flights. Only the ultra-rich had their own jets. Today, the fractional jet business has made private jet travel affordable for the merely wealthy. People spend the money for the extravagance because it is so much more pleasant and convenient than commercial travel. But that is all it is -- pleasant and convenient. Surely that is not a reason to destroy the world?

As Glenn Reynolds put it a few days ago, it would be much easier to believe that CO2 emissions have led to a crisis if the people who are most vocal in promoting that idea acted as if they believed it. One way they could do that is to buy offsets and not fly on private jets. The two actions, after all, are actually and morally independent. The linking of offsets to indulgence is either self-deceptive or propagandistic, but it is not logical or moral.

Source






GOVERNMENTS AND CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUES: THE CASE FOR RETHINK

By David Henderson

1. A flawed process

The Stern Review on the economics of climate change has given rise to a spirited professional debate. My purpose here is not so much to extend that debate as to comment on a related and wider topic, namely, the questionable treatment of climate change issues by governments across the world. The Review is best seen in context, and part of that context now is the massive Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Since the Review appeared in final form, much though not the whole of AR4 has seen the light of day; and in particular, all three Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs), one for each of the IPCC's three Working Groups, are now in the public domain.

The whole of the Report is due to appear by November 2007. Altogether, AR4 may well run to 3,000 pages, and some 2,500 experts were apparently involved in preparing it: I refer to this array of persons as the IPCC network. A related document to be noted, since it formed the point of departure for AR4 as for its predecessor, is the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES), commissioned by Working Group III and published in 2000.

Both the Stern Review and AR4 form part of a much wider picture. They are recent and important contributions to a large-scale worldwide continuing process which goes back over 20 years. Within it, governments are informing themselves about issues relating to climate change, defining and reviewing possible courses of action to deal with it, and shaping policies accordingly.

I have come to believe that this official process is seriously flawed. There are grounds for concern about the way in which governments across the world, and more particularly the governments of OECD member countries, are viewing and handling climate change issues. The concerns relate both to the basis and rationale for current policies, and to their actual content. Under both headings, a new and more considered approach is called for-a new framework for policy.

My main emphasis here is on the former area-that is, on the considerations which have formed the basis for official beliefs, actions, and proposals for further action. These considerations, the arguments and evidence which have carried weight, have chiefly emerged from the established official process of inquiry and review which is conducted through the mechanism of the IPCC and results in the Assessment Reports. Up-to-date top-level official confirmation that this is so is contained in the Declaration issued after the G8 Summit meeting of June 2007 (para 49): "Taking into account the scientific knowledge as represented in the recent IPCC reports, global greenhouse emissions must stop rising, followed by substantial global emission reductions."

Hence it is the IPCC process in particular that has to be a primary focus of attention: I give reasons for questioning it, and suggest ways in which it could be both strengthened and supplemented. To define the leading issue in this way does not at all imply a concern for procedures as opposed to substance. To the contrary: since the IPCC's assessments provide the basis and rationale for far-reaching conclusions, decisions and actions by governments everywhere, the reliability and integrity of the IPCC process constitutes a key substantive issue.

Governments and Climate Change Issues

The climate change agenda is not new, and governments are not starting from scratch. Policies to deal with perceived problems are well established and in course of being taken further. In the section that now follows, I sketch in some relevant background.

In Section 3, I comment on some aspects of both the Stern Review and AR4, and raise the question of how far the two documents convey the same central message. I note here, and comment on, the strong and growing official emphasis on the risks and dangers of global warming.

Section 4 sets out my central thesis. I outline what I call the problem of unwarranted trust in the IPCC process of inquiry and review: I put in question both the role of the Panel, as the chief instrument of governments, and the working assumptions of the departments and agencies that it reports to.

In the final sections, I turn from criticism to positive proposals, and sketch out a suggested alternative framework for policy. This alternative comprises two interrelated elements:

* measures to strengthen the basis for decisions, by providing for a more balanced treatment of the issues and the evidence (Section 5); and

* a more coherent and less presumptive approach to policy, together with a stronger emphasis on taxation, rather than regulation, as a means to curbing emissions (Section 6).

In the Annex I comment on disturbing features of some scientific contributions to the current debate on climate change.

Excerpt above from WORLD ECONOMICS * Vol. 8 * No. 2 * April-June 2007






Australia: Illegal fishing sunk by new rules

This is something that should even make the Greenies happy -- if there is such a thing as a happy Greenie. Australia's very extensive territorial waters are heavily protected from overfishing by Australian laws and therefore ensure extensive habitat preservation for marine species. But Australia's Muslim neighbours need heavy pressure before they will pay any attention to Australia's right to control its own waters and resources. They have negligently fished out their own extensive waters and see no reason why they should not steal fish from Australian waters. The Australian government does however now seem to have got the attention of most of them

MORE warships and planes, greater co-operation from Jakarta and tough new rules allowing the navy to "shoot to sink" the vessels of suspected poachers has led to a 90 per cent drop in the number of illegal fishing boats this year. And those boats that are spotted are more likely to be seized, with a doubling of the apprehension rate, defence spokesman Brigadier Andrew Nikolic said yesterday.

Operation Resolute -- the name given to fisheries protection -- combines the resources of the Australian Defence Force, Customs and Quarantine and the Australian Fisheries Management Authority. Orion spy planes, mine hunters, a missile-armed frigate and Armidale class patrol boats can be called on to enforce the vast northern fishery zone, Brigadier Nikolic said. In the 12 months to June 30, the navy alone had boarded 235 suspected illegal fishing boats, he said. Area surveillance had increased by about 10 per cent.

The figures indicate new federal government strategies to tackle the scourge of illegal fishing were beginning to work, a spokesman for Fisheries Minister Eric Abetz said. "In the 18 months since the ramped-up budget package came into place with an extra $390 million, we've seen a decline (in illegal fishing boat sightings) of around 90 per cent," he said. At the weekend, three Indonesian boats equipped with sophisticated diving gear were seized off Evans Shoal, 320km northwest of Darwin.

Last year's budget measures paved the way for a big boost in patrol hours and the deployment of additional maritime resources for cracking down on illegal fishing. A total of 365 illegal fishing boats were caught last year, compared with 281 in 2005. Still of concern to authorities were the estimated 6700 sightings last year of illegal vessels in Australian waters. While many of these are likely to have involved the same boat, the number is still high and according to federal Labor justifies its policy of a national coast guard service.

The cost for the (Indonesian) owners of losing their fishing boats has proven a decisive factor in the fall in the number of sightings this year, the minister's spokesman said. Relaxed rules of engagement also allow warships to fire on illegal fishing boats if they fail to heed warnings to stop. Education programs in poor Indonesian fishing communities and better co-operation between Australia and Indonesia since the 2006 Lombok Treaty were also helping stem illegal fishing.

Source

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The Lockwood paper was designed to rebut Durkin's "Great Global Warming Swindle" film. It is a rather confused paper -- acknowleging yet failing to account fully for the damping effect of the oceans, for instance -- but it is nonetheless valuable to climate atheists. The concession from a Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven climate change for all but the last 20 years (See the first sentence of the paper) really is invaluable. And the basic fact presented in the paper -- that solar output has in general been on the downturn in recent years -- is also amusing to see. Surely even a crazed Greenie mind must see that the sun's influence has not stopped and that reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! Unprecedented July 2007 cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even be the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got the danger exactly backwards. See my post of 7.14.07 and a very detailed critique here for more on the Lockwood paper

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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