Saturday, September 24, 2011

Armed Troops Burn Down Homes, Kill Children To Evict Ugandans In Name Of Global Warming

The authoritarian thinking of the Green/Left must have Fascist results wherever they get the power

Armed troops acting on behalf of a British carbon trading company backed by the World Bank burned houses to the ground and killed children to evict Ugandans from their homes in the name of seizing land to protect against “global warming,” a shocking illustration of how the climate change con is a barbarian form of neo-colonialism.

The evictions were ordered by New Forests Company, an outfit that seizes land in Africa to grow trees then sells the “carbon credits” on to transnational corporations. The company is backed by the World Bank and HSBC. Its Board of Directors includes HSBC Managing Director Sajjad Sabur, as well as other former Goldman Sachs investment bankers.

The company claims residents of Kicucula left in a “peaceful” and “voluntary” manner, and yet the people tell a story of terror and bloodshed. Villagers told of how armed “security forces” stormed their village and torched houses, burning an eight-year-child to death as they threatened to murder anyone who resisted while beating others. “We were in church,” recalled Jean-Marie Tushabe, 26, a father of two. “I heard bullets being shot into the air.”

“Cars were coming with police,” Mr. Tushabe said, sitting among the ruins of his old home. “They headed straight to the houses. They took our plates, cups, mattresses, bed, pillows. Then we saw them getting a matchbox out of their pockets.”

“But in this case, the government and the company said the settlers were illegal and evicted for a good cause: to protect the environment and help fight global warming,” reports the New York Times.

An Oxfam report documents how the British outfit has worked with the Ugandan government to forcibly expel over 20,000 people from their homes using terror and violence as part of a lucrative scramble for arable land that can be used to satisfy the multi-billion dollar carbon trading ponzi scheme, which is worth $1.8 million a year to the company.

“I no longer own any land. It’s impossible to feed my children – they have suffered so much. Some days all they eat is porridge from maize flour. When people can’t eat well their bodies become weak – there have been lots of cases of malaria and diarrhoea. Some days we don’t eat anything at all,” said former farmer Francis Longoli, whose land was stolen by New Forests.

As we have previously documented, the manufactured threat of man-made global warming is being used as a tool of neo-colonialism in the third world, not only through the seizure of land and infrastructure, thereby preventing poor nations from using their resources to develop, but by literally starving poverty-stricken people to death.

Climate change alarmism and implementation of global warming policies is a crime of the highest nature, because it is already having a genocidal impact in countries like Haiti, where the doubling of food prices is resulting in a substantial increase in starvation, poverty and death, with the population being forced to live on mud pies.

As a National Geographic Report confirmed, “With food prices rising, Haiti’s poorest can’t afford even a daily plate of rice, and some must take desperate measures to fill their bellies,” by “eating mud,” partly as a consequence of “increasing global demand for biofuels.”

In April 2008, World Bank President Robert Zoellick admitted that biofuels were a “significant contributor” to soaring food prices that have led to poor people dying from starvation as a result of biofuels dominating land that would normally be used to harvest food.

Even man-made global warming advocate George Monbiot admits that promotion of biofuels “is causing starvation in the poor world,” particularly in Swaziland, where the decision to allocate several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production despite the country being in the grip of a famine was labeled “a crime against humanity” by Jean Ziegler, the UN’s special rapporteur.

But it’s not just biofuels, a product of global warming alarmism, that are unleashing a genocide against black people in poorer countries, it’s the whole anti-development mantra embraced by climate change activists that is being enforced by supranational organizations like the World Bank and the IMF in the name of reducing carbon dioxide, the evil life-giving gas that plants breathe and humans exhale.

Indeed, poorer countries rejected the 2009 Copenhagen climate agreement precisely because it discriminated against third world nations.

In addition, the Obama administration, firmly supported by Al Gore, last year ordered the World Bank to keep “developing” countries underdeveloped by blocking them from building coal-fired power plants, ensuring that poorer countries remain in poverty as a result of energy demands not being met.

By preventing poor nations from becoming self-sufficient in blocking them from producing their own energy, the Obama administration is ensuring that millions more will die from starvation and lack of access to hospitals and medical treatment.

While ignorant environmentalist leftists preach all day about the effects of global warming having the most impact on poorer countries, it is in fact the poorer countries and their people who are suffering most from global warming alarmism, and predators like the banker-backed New Forests Company.

The seizure of arable land in the name of “global warming” is set to become big business, which is why the United Nations recently announced it is preparing to roll out an army of green helmeted “climate peacekeepers” to intervene in poorer countries to protect “shrinking resources”.

Transnational corporations, in league with western governments and offshore banks, have seized upon the climate change scam to carry out genocidal policies and land grabs in the pursuit of selling carbon credits to other transnational corporations who then merely pass on the cost to the consumer.

SOURCE





High levels of CO2 help corn crops RESIST drought

A recent article in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology gives us a clearer picture of the nature of drought in the corn belt of the United States. The article was produced by six scientists with tree-ring labs at the University of Missouri, the University of Arizona, and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York. The Stambaugh et al. team acknowledges that “This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Previous support was received from the University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry and the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station.” The goal of the team was to create a record of drought for the corn belt extending back 1,000+ years nearly doubling the length of record currently available.

The group collected tree-ring data from live and subfossil oak trees from northern Missouri and southern Iowa. As is the custom in this type of research, they related the tree rings to climate variables over the period of historical climate records (starting in 1895). They found that the trees grew large rings in periods with cool and wet summers and small rings with conditions were warm and dry. They were able to relatively accurately reconstruct the Palmer Hydrological Drought Index from 1895 to near present for their study area

The climate records do not go back before 1895, but the tree rings extend back to AD 912. With some statistical wizardry, Stambaugh et al. were able to generate a time series of drought for over 1,000 years

In describing their fundamental results, the authors state “Separate reconstructions tailored to emphasize high-frequency and low-frequency variations indicate that drought conditions over the period of instrumental records (since 1895) do not exhibit the full range of variability, severity, or duration of droughts during the last millennium. For example, three years in the last millennium were drier than 1934, a classic Dust-Bowl year and the driest year of the instrumental period. Thirteen decadal to multidecadal droughts (i.e., ≥10 years) occurred during the last millennium – the longest lasting sixty-one years and centered on the late twelfth century.” We also note that no trend exists toward increasing drought during the most recent century when greenhouse gas concentrations increased substantially!

So from this study we definitely learn that droughts in the region naturally occur with relative frequency, and undoubtedly will continue to do so in the future—no need to invoke large-scale human alteration to the atmospheric composition.

In the same volume of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, a second article appears with fabulous news for corn growers the world over. The article was written by five scientists with the US Department of Agriculture and the University of Maryland. The Chun et al. team notes early in the piece that “There have been many studies on the interaction of CO2 and water on plant growth. Under elevated CO2, less water is used to produce each unit of dry matter by reducing stomatal conductance.” Under elevated CO2 conditions, plants will simply use and need much less water to achieve the same outcome – yet another benefit of increased CO2 concentrations.

But what about corn? To find out, Chun et al. grew corn in chambers with CO2 concentrations at either 400 ppm or 800 ppm, and they varied the amount of water the plants would receive. At the end of the experiment, they concluded “Approximately 13–20% and 35% less water was used under the elevated CO2 conditions than under the ambient CO2 conditions, for the water stressed conditions and for the well-watered conditions, respectively. These results suggest that under increased CO2 concentrations as generally predicted in the future, less water will be required for corn plants than at present.” Their final two sentences are priceless as they tell us that the higher water use efficiency in the elevated CO2 chambers “indicates that less water was used under the elevated CO2 condition to produce similar biomass as that in the ambient CO2 treatment. This study suggests that less water will be required under high-CO2 environment in the future than at present.”

We realize that our future will see droughts in the corn belt – whether these future droughts are related to human activities can be debated forever. The good news is that elevated CO2 will give corn in the future a defense against any droughts that occur – corn will simply require much less water given the biological benefits associated with extra levels of CO2. The goodness will be felt the world over, not just in America’s corn belt.

SOURCE




Ideology Plus Desperation Equals Folly

Rich Kozlovich on the bedbug coverup

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Steve Milloy of Junkscience.com about a report released by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) outlining how many people had been made ill by pesticide applications over a seven year period involving treatments for bed bug infestations in seven states.

Over that seven year period there were 111 reported reactions with one fatality. Considering that 93% of these cases were caused by inappropriate applications of pesticides by these people themselves, and literally tens of thousands of applications have been made in the last seven years for bed bugs alone; this is a remarkable safety record for pesticides….after all if any product is misused there will be unhappy consequences.

You will notice that most of these problems have occurred in the last couple of years. Why? Because this plague of bed bugs is expanding at a rate that would have been considered impossible a few years ago. In 1996 the Environmental Protection Agency promoted something called the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), which was to be a fix for something called the Delaney Clause of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938. For more information on this please go to my article, We Don’t Need No Stinking Badges. As a result whole categories of safe effective chemistry was lost to the structural pest control industry, and to the general public.

It didn’t take long before the impact of that action was felt. There were those in our industry that predicted that one of the first major problems we would encounter as a society from FQPA would be the return of bed bugs. They were right. There were those in our industry who predicted all of these problems involving health problem caused by misapplications. They were right, and all of what has occurred was perfectly predictable.

The one thing we have to come to understand is that the finger of blame needs to be pointed at the right party. The blame must be placed at the feet the ones responsible for this plague overtaking the nation, the pesticide misapplications and the related health problems; The Environmental Protection Agency! Through their irrational anti-pesticide agenda we have lost effective products that would prevented this plague in the first place. As a result people would not have required unending treatments they cannot afford by professionals which has forced them to attempt to eradicate this problem on their own. As a result of the EPA’s actions people, especially the poor, are desperate for relief. This sense of desperation these people feel causes them to act with folly in order to rid their homes of these pests.

Reports such as this from CDC amount to unnecessary scare mongering as they admit themselves that “Although the number of acute illnesses from insecticides used to control bed bugs does not suggest a large public health burden, increases in bed bug populations that are resistant to commonly available insecticides might result in increased misuse of pesticides.” This report is scare mongering with no solution to the problem. They go on to say:
Public health recommendations to prevent illnesses associated with insecticides used to control bed bugs include media campaigns to educate the public about bed bug--related issues, including nonchemical methods to control bed bugs, methods to prevent bed bug infestation (e.g., avoiding the purchase of used mattresses and box springs), and prudent use of effective insecticides. Persons who have a bed bug infestation should be encouraged to seek the services of a certified applicator…If they had stopped there they would have at least offered something of value, but they continue…. who uses an IPM (Integrated Pest Management) approach to avoid pesticide misuse. And finally they supply the answer to these misapplications; “Persons applying insecticides should follow product instructions for safe and appropriate use. Insecticide labels that are easy to read and understand also can help prevent illnesses associated with bed bug control.”

None of this changes the fact that bed bug numbers are expanding at an outrageous rate throughout the nation because of this foolish IPM mentality. In point of fact there is no such thing as IPM in structural pest control. The EPA has an irrational desire to eliminate pesticides, including pyrethrins and pyrethroids, no matter what they say publically, and so they have promoted IPM for years as an alternative. The reality is that IPM is an agricultural concept that is based on a logical foundation of threshold limits. What is the logical foundation for IPM in structural pest control? There isn’t one! Since there is no logical foundation for IPM in structural pest control IPM doesn’t exist in structural pest control except for the fact that the government says it exists. Please see The Pillars of IPM.

This whole report is nothing more than anti-pesticide scaremongering with no solutions, no insights and little value to society. Here is the whole story in a nutshell; the EPA’s ideology created the desperation these people feel and this desperation generated the folly of their actions; and folly has consequences; unfortunately the penalties of green activism is always paid for by an unsuspecting public; it is never paid for by the perpetrators.

The answer to this problem in 1946 was effective, inexpensive, easy to use chemistry that was available to everyone. If that isn't the answer to our current problem there will be no answer.

I have written extensively on this subject. Please read My Bed Bug Series.

SOURCE




Gore lies about his audience

Truth has never been a priority for him

It was called '24 Hours of Reality', but Al Gore's latest climate change campaign appears to have come up against a very inconvenient truth.

The former vice president had said that his day-long online marathon of talks on the environment on Thursday had been watched by as many as 8.6million people. But it has now been claimed that the number of people logging on for the highly publicised presentations that were streamed around the world was closer to 17,000 people.

Despite Gore successfully getting speakers including Renee Zellweger to make appearances, website 'Watts Up With That?' has revealed that internet viewing figures were way below those reported by Gore.

Video highlights of the talks posted on YouTube have also proved to be unpopular, with some films receiving just one or two views.

The internet campaign spearheaded by the former presidential candidate was supposed to raise awareness about climate change. The multimedia presentations showed how extreme weather events, such as floods, fires and storms, are linked to climate change. The hourly broadcasts were filmed from locations across the world including Beijing, New Delhi, Jakarta, London and Rio de Janeiro.

Meanwhile, Eric Young, Deputy Communications Director, The Climate Reality Project, refuted reports numbers were inflated. Mr Young told MailOnline: 'We are thrilled by the vast global attention 24 Hours of Reality received.

'Millions of people around the world watched and engaged online and in person. Our strategy was to bring the event to as many people as possible. We achieved this by partnering with Ustream, whose player was embedded in sites across the web, not just on our homepage. This was in addition to the watch parties in homes, schools and businesses, and the live television broadcast on Current TV.'

The campaign ended at 7pm EDT on Thursday with a final speech from Gore broadcast from New York City.

The claims come as it was revealed that Keith Olbermann's show has seen a big reduction in ratings since it was moved from MSNBC to Gore's cable network Current. 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' ranked among the top 20 cable news shows when it was host on MSNBC, but it now ranked at 65th, according to the New York Daily News.

SOURCE




U.K. Gets Big Shale Gas Find

An area in northwest England may contain 200 trillion cubic feet of shale gas, putting it in the same league as some of the vast shale-gas plays that have transformed the U.S. energy industry.

The figure for the area near Blackpool, released Wednesday by Cuadrilla Resources, a small oil-and-gas company with operations in England's Bowland Shale, highlights the U.K.'s emerging position as a new frontier for unconventional gas exploration. But it inflamed environmental groups who say the technology used to extract shale gas is environmentally damaging.

"We have as much gas per square mile in Bowland as the successful North American shale plays," said Mark Miller, Cuadrilla's chief executive, in an interview. He said the company found nearly four times more gas than it was expecting to discover.

The discovery of such vast resources—200 trillion cubic feet would be enough to meet U.K. gas demand for 64 years—comes at a time when the U.K.'s conventional gas fields are in steep decline and as it is becoming increasingly dependent on imports such as liquefied natural gas from Qatar and piped gas from Norway.

The exploitation of shale gas has revolutionized American energy markets, helping the U.S. in 2009 to overtake Russia as the world's largest gas producer. Shale now accounts for about 20% of U.S. gas production, but total output is expected to quadruple in coming years. The boom has touched off a scramble for access to acreage in the Barnett, Marcellus and Haynesville shales in the U.S., where much of the new resource is concentrated.

Now the shale boom is beginning to spread to Europe, which also boasts large reserves of unconventional gas. But opposition from environmentalists has been fierce. Shale gas is produced using a technology known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," which involves injecting huge volumes of water, sand and chemicals deep underground, creating fissures—or fractures— that allow the gas trapped inside the shale rock to flow out. Critics fear that fracking can contaminate ground and surface water or even cause gas to leak into domestic water supplies. In June, France became the first country to ban shale-gas exploration.

In response to Cuadrilla's announcement, the environmental group WWF called Wednesday for a moratorium on shale-gas production in the U.K. and said the country should be more focused on investing in renewables than increasing its reliance on fossil fuels. "The government should at the very least halt shale gas exploration in Britain until more research can be undertaken on both the climate-change impacts and contamination risks associated with shale gas," said Jenny Banks, WWF-UK's energy- and climate-change policy officer.

Cuadrilla said a parliamentary committee had looked into the health and safety issues surrounding fracking and decided not to introduce tough new controls on the practice. Spokesman Paul Kelly said Cuadrillaswas trying to provide a transitional resource that would bridge the gap until renewables could be deployed on a realistic scale.

Cuadrilla had to suspend its fracking operations earlier this year after two small earthquakes shook the Blackpool area in April and May. Critics said they were caused by Cuadrilla's operations. The company commissioned a study by a group of independent experts to determine whether there was a link. They are expected to present their final report in the next few weeks, and Mr. Miller said he was "confident" it would provide a basis for Cuadrilla to resume fracking.

Cuadrilla stressed Wednesday that the 200 trillion cubic feet was "gas in place" and wasn't the same as the recoverable volume of gas in Bowland, which could turn out to be a much smaller figure. The Marcellus Shale has about 84 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Cuadrilla has so far only drilled two exploration wells, with a third soon to be completed, but in its "high-end" scenario it envisages drilling 800 wells in the area over 16 years. Cuadrilla said it hoped to be able to present the U.K. government with a full-field development plan by the end of 2012 and start commercial production of gas in 2013.

Cuadrilla's announcement could lead to sharp upward revisions in estimates of Britain's shale-gas potential. The country has traditionally ranked low on the list of European shale-gas players, with the U.S. Energy Information Administration saying earlier this year it had only 20 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale-gas resources, compared with Poland's 187 trillion cubic feet. That could now change.

SOURCE





Australia: Queensland State Government admits electricity grid failing to cope with solar power systems

Greenie fantasies run into engineering practicalites

THE solar power revolution is in danger of stalling, with the State Government admitting the electricity grid is failing to cope with its green vision.

Energy Minister Stephen Robertson confirmed new applications for rooftop solar systems were being rejected in areas where Queensland's high uptake threatened the safety and reliability of its network.

Thousands of homeowners hoping for promised power savings of up to $540 via a 1.5kW system are in limbo, with those wanting larger systems even being asked to pay more than $20,000 to help cover local upgrades.

Energex said the state's electricity network since the 1950s had been designed to deliver power from the station to the home and the voltage now heading "the other way" was causing a huge dilemma.

Following advice from engineering experts, no more systems will be automatically approved when the penetration of solar photovoltaic systems hits 30 per cent in neighbourhoods.

The penetration refers to the maximum capacity of the transformer supplying the local zone, which can include 50 homes.

In a bid to cut power bills, more than 107,000 Queensland households have jumped at the Solar Bonus Scheme, launched in 2008, exporting 72.5 million kW hours back to the grid.

However, unless significant, costly upgrades are completed, many who might want to add solar panels in the future may not be able to.

SOURCE

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

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1 comment:

John A said...

"Armed Troops Burn Down Homes, Kill Children To Evict Ugandans In Name Of Global Warming"
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Maybe. It is on the edge of believability. But looking at the stories - and those ads! - on the homepage, well...
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Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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Once again those with degrees in the sixty-year-old PhD level of "Meteorology" get somewhat different results from grads of the thirty-year-old "Climate Science" graduate program?
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bedbugs, etc.
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"The blame must be placed at the feet the ones responsible for this plague overtaking the nation, the pesticide misapplications and the related health problems; The Environmental Protection Agency! Through their irrational anti-pesticide agenda we have lost effective products that would prevented this plague in the first place"
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Or on Nixon, but more Congress. Which gave the EPA (and FDA and OSHA and...) powers it does not have itself. Decide what to consider, put out regulations (laws), seek out violators (investigators), affix penalties (laws again, and judicial processes), mete out those penalties (judicial, taxation, even omprisonment) - not just "judge, jury, and executioner" but the writers of the laws in the first place.
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Did All Gory "Faw down, go boom?" How inconvenient.
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So Australia's Solar Bonus Scheme to get everyone to go solar may commit suicide if a third accept? And England has to pay wind farms more to NOT produce power than they would get for producing?