Will these clowns never learn? Doomsday arriving NEXT YEAR!

If CO2 levels really did correlate with temperature rises, our little man of faith below might just have some point. That they don't he just ignores

A couple of things are certain about the latest round of UN climate change talks that begin tomorrow in Bonn. The first is that any advance toward implementing a proper commitment on reducing carbon dioxide emissions will again be what used to be known as glacial. The second is that the climate in which these talks are being held is already markedly hotter to that in which they began very nearly 20 years ago.

You don't have to be a wheat farmer in Suffolk to know that we are not waiting for climate change to happen, as we liked to believe when the UN started talking in 1992; we are in the midst of it. Every year in this century has been warmer than all but one – 1998 – in the last. Last year, the second hottest on record, an unprecedented 19 nations set new all-time temperature records and, as one consequence, extreme weather events have increased both incontrovertibly and in line with prediction.

The only temperature that remains stubbornly cool is the political one. Governments – and, by extension, all of us – know what is happening, but still, it seems, refuse to believe. Since the Copenhagen summit of two years ago, even limited progress has stalled. Inaction has become once again, because of pressing economic crises, almost addictive. Last week's announcement from the International Energy Agency that CO2 in the atmosphere rose dramatically in 2010, and at current rates will arrive the doomsday levels once predicted for 2020 by as early as next year, was the latest statistic to serve notice of that fact.

More HERE




Is Green The New Tyranny?

An International Conference to be held at the University of Los Angeles, 12 -13 June 2011

The environmental movement arose in the early 20th Century in response to the demand of conservationists to protect our natural environment. As the century progressed, it achieved a number of notable successes which helped improve the cleanliness of our water and the quality of air while preserving for future generations great tracts of natural wilderness. Today few argue that our environment should not be protected against man made contaminants or that natural wilderness, where economically and socially practicable, should not be conserved.

But the contemporary Green Movement, represented by a variety of national and international institutions, may have far exceeded its original mandate to protect the Earth. In modern times it has launched aggressive campaigns against modern society, including attacks on the nuclear family, denunciation of traditional religion and the repudiation of free enterprise.

This conference will examine this movement by exploring global warming alarmism, the philosophy of sustainability, the growing clout of the animal rights movement and the enactment of supranational proclamations such as Agenda 21 and the Earth Charter. It will address one ultimate question - is the Green Movement indeed a noble cause, vouchsafing a better living environment for all humanity - or a new tyranny, determined to restructure our institutions, redefine our relationship with the natural world and stifle our freedom?

Conference programme and details here




Talk about projection! Warmist calls skeptics boneheaded

Just an excerpt from his little Fascist rant below. Nowhere in the whole article does he mention ONE FACT in support of his Warmist creed. So who is the bonehead? Skeptics never STOP citing the facts

Surely it's time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies. Not necessarily on the forehead; I'm a reasonable man. Just something along their arm or across their chest so their grandchildren could say, "Really? You were one of the ones who tried to stop the world doing something? And why exactly was that, granddad?"

On second thoughts, maybe the tattooing along the arm is a bit Nazi-creepy. So how about they are forced to buy property on low-lying islands, the sort of property that will become worthless with a few more centimetres of ocean rise, so they are bankrupted by their own bloody-mindedness? Or what about their signed agreement to stand, in the year 2040, lashed to a pole at a certain point in the shallows off Manly? If they are right and the world is cooling - "climate change stopped in the year 1998" is one of their more boneheaded beliefs - their mouths will be above water. If not …

OK, maybe the desire to see the painful, thrashing death of one's opponents is not ideal. But, my God, these people are frustrating. You just know that in 20 years' time, when the costs of our inaction are clear, the climate deniers will become climate-denial-deniers. "Who me? Oh, no, I always believed in it. Yes, it's hard to understand why people back then were so daft. It's so much more costly to stop it now." That's why the tattoo has its appeal.....

Each generation of people has a job to do; a burden that falls to their time. Sometimes, it's a war or depression. Sometimes, it's the work of building the first railways and roads. Sometimes, it's a plague that wipes out half the population or a fire that destroys a whole city.

Looked at through this lens, our generation has it easy. Already wealthy and armed with new technology, we need to front up to the challenge of building a low-carbon economy.

The tool we'll use is a carbon tax that seeks to subtly redirect some of our choices. Cut your power bill by more than the compensation offered and you get to keep the change. Is that really so onerous compared with a depression or war?

Our grandparents didn't fail us, even though the challenges they faced were so much greater. So why are we in the process of failing to live up to their example?

More HERE.




Flawed Food Narrative in the New York Times

Today's New York Times has an article by Justin Gillis on global food production that strains itself to the breaking point to make a story fit a narrative. The narrative, of course, is that climate change "is helping to destabilize the food system." The problem with the article is that the data that it presents don't support this narrative.

Before proceeding, let me reiterate that human-caused climate change is a threat and one that we should be taking seriously. But taking climate change seriously does not mean shoehorning every global concern into that narrative, and especially conflating concerns about the future with what has been observed in the past. The risk of course of putting a carbon-centric spin on every issue is that other important dimensions are neglected.

The central thesis of the NYT article is the following statement: "The rapid growth in farm output that defined the late 20th century has slowed to the point that it is failing to keep up with the demand for food, driven by population increases and rising affluence in once-poor countries."

But this claim of slowing output is shown to be completely false by the graphic that accompanies the article, shown below. Far from slowing, farm output has increased dramatically over the past half-century (left panel) and on a per capita basis in 2009 was higher than at any point since the early 1980s (right panel).

The article relies heavily on empty appeals to authority. For example, it makes an unsupported assertion about what "scientists believe": "Many of the failed harvests of the past decade were a consequence of weather disasters, like floods in the United States, drought in Australia and blistering heat waves in Europe and Russia. Scientists believe some, though not all, of those events were caused or worsened by human-induced global warming."

Completely unmentioned are the many (most?) scientists who believe that evidence is lacking to connect recent floods and heat waves to "human-induced global warming." In fact, the balance of evidence with respect to floods is decidedly contrary to the assertion in the article, and recent heat wave attribution is at best contested. More importantly, even in the face of periodic weather extremes, food prices -- which link supply and demand -- exhibit a long-term downward trend, despite recent spikes.

Even the experts that Gillis cites don't really support the central thesis of the article. For instance: “The success of agriculture has been astounding,” said Cynthia Rosenzweig, a researcher at NASA who helped pioneer the study of climate change and agriculture. “But I think there’s starting to be premonitions that it may not continue forever.”

Some important issues beyond carbon dioxide are raised in the article, but are presented as secondary to the carbon narrative. Other important issues are completely ignored -- for example, wheat rust goes unmentioned, and it probably has a greater risk to food supplies in the short term than anything to do with carbon dioxide.

The carbon dioxide-centric focus on the article provides a nice illustration of how an obsession with "global warming" can serve to distract attention from factors that actually matter more for issues of human and environmental concern.

SOURCE (See the original for links)





Germany’s Biogas Bhopal? Deadly E. Coli “Home-Made” Says Expert

The German Die Welt online here reports that veterinary and medical experts are now saying that biogas plants may be the source of the lethal E. coli bacteria now running rampant through Germany. Although the disaster is nowhere the scale we saw in Bhopal, India, so far we have seen 18 dead and over 500 hospitalized. And needless to say, millions of Europeans are spooked.

Manure and biogas plant-waste on food would be unthinkable inside a food factory, but not out in the field? Die Welt writes: "Ernst-Günther Hellwig, director of the Agricultural and Veterinary Academy in Horstmar, warns that the bacteria likely comes from new sources, saying the epidemic is a house-made German problem. ‘It is possible that the EHEC contagion comes from biogas plants,’ he said.”

Die Welt also reports that Hellwig has long been critical of biogas plants. Yet biogas industry proponents claim there is no connection between the current E. coli outbreak and biogas plant operations.

Hellwig is not alone in this belief. Die Welt also writes that laboratory director Bernd Schottdorf, founder of the 1500-employee private medical laboratory Schottdorf MVZ in Augsburg, the biggest in Europe, also thinks the connection is possible. “Spores survive the biogas plants’ prescribed hygienization of 70°C without a problem“, he says. “We don’t know if the hygienization is properly carried out at all biogas plants.” When waste product from biogas plants is spread on fields, they can contaminate the vegetables.

North Germany’s unusual dry weather and drought conditions, where it did not rain for weeks during the springtime, may have played a role in the spread of the deadly bacteria. Spores can stay on plants for a long time, as they don’t get washed off by rain. The biogas plant substrate, which is a by-product and is used as a fertilizer, probably didn’t get washed off the crops by any rain. Currently there are 6800 biogas plants in Germany and their inspection is disorganised.

North German drought and dirty irrigation and “unwashed” crops

Die Welt also writes that experts believe the unusually dry spring weather also may have led farmers to irrigate their crops using their liquid-manure spreaders. Farmers sometimes irrigate crops during dry spells using liquid manure spreaders, as this German manufacturer suggests here (scroll down to Liquid manure Distribution and irrigation systems).

The problem is that these liquid manure tanks are of course dirty and so contaminate the water, which in turn contaminates the crops. And then if it doesn’t rain for days or weeks, the crops stay contaminated through the time they are harvested.

Some points are clear: 1) The source of the E. coli is Northern Germany, which is home to many biogas plants and where agricultural manure fertilizer is widely used. The weather in the run-up to the start of the epidemic was very dry. Indeed, more detective work is needed to trace back the cause.

The online FOCUS magazine here also brings up the biogas plant issue.

Biogas plants are also suspected of causing DEADLY BOTULISM in North German Agriculture, read here. Looks like all the well-intentioned green agriculture is leading to a trail of death and illness instead of natural health and cleanliness.

SOURCE





Australia: Green/Left government feels the heat over carbon tax backlash as voters call for new election

AUSTRALIANS are demanding Julia Gillard call a fresh election, saying she has no mandate for a carbon tax. With less than a third of all voters now claiming to support the tax, the federal government is facing a nationwide backlash if it proceeds.

An exclusive Galaxy poll commissioned by The Daily Telegraph has revealed 73 per cent of people claim they will end up worse off under the tax. Just 7 per cent believe they could end up better off in some way.

More fatal for the Prime Minister, however, was the overwhelming support for an election to be called on the issue - confirming widespread anger over her broken election promise not to introduce a carbon tax. A total of 64 per cent said they wanted a fresh election. Only 24 per cent believed the PM had a mandate.

And in a growing sentiment that the tax would not help solve the climate change problem, 75 per cent believed it would have only a minor impact on the environment - or no impact at all.

The devastating poll results, showing total opposition now at 58 per cent, confirm the government has so far failed to make an effective case for its tax.

They also reflect Liberal Party internal polling showing support for Tony Abbott's campaign to force the government to an early election, despite analysis showing the Coalition's alternative direct action plan would be even more costly.

Galaxy pollster David Briggs said opposition to the tax was entrenched. "The problem for the government is that most voters believe the personal cost outweighs the environmental benefits," he said. "Such is concern over the carbon tax that the majority of voters believe Julia Gillard should call an early election to seek a mandate for the tax rather than have the legislation passed in this parliament."

The federal government is expected to announce details of the tax within weeks. It will not only set the carbon price - believed to be between $20 and $30 per tonne - but also the level of compensation households will receive to offset the cost of living rise that will accompany the tax.

The carbon tax is only planned to be an interim measure before a transition to a market-based price - an emissions trading scheme.

Opponents of the scheme have succeeded in casting fears that the price is likely to rise significantly no matter what is set in the short term. The government has tried to assuage fears by assuring people that lower and middle-income families will be compensated for the associated price rises - particularly around electricity bills, which could rise by between $300 and $500 a year in Sydney. Ms Gillard has said the political fight over climate change policy was "a long game". The poll was conducted between June 1 and 2, based on a national sample of 500 voters.

SOURCE

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