REAL DISASTER RELIEF

The Bush administration undertook some of its own disaster recovery last week by increasing U.S. aid to tsunami victims from $15 million to $350 million. But much more could, and should, be done for the health and economic development of the tsunami victims and of other developing nations' populations. The President could start the process of providing that much-needed relief with the stroke of his pen - and it wouldn't cost U.S. taxpayers one cent. All President Bush needs to do is to withdraw the U.S. from the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs treaty).

Tentatively agreed to in May 2001 by 90-plus nations, including the United States, the POPs treaty is intended as a means by which the United Nations and other international bureaucrats can control the use of industrial chemicals. The treaty became effective in May 2004 after France became the 50th nation to ratify it formally. Though the Bush administration has endorsed the treaty, the Senate has not yet ratified it. So the U.S. is not yet bound by its terms - which would impose deadly consequences on much of the developing world.

The POPs treaty bans or restricts the use of 12 targeted chemicals alleged to cause human health effects, including cancer, and to harm wildlife. One of the chemicals targeted by the POPs treaty is the insecticide DDT - which, as discussed in earlier columns - was banned by the U.S. in 1972 based on junk science. The POPs treaty limits how much DDT nations may store, how they can acquire it, and when and how they can use it. These rules will increase the cost of, and delay access to, the only effective defense against the mosquitoes that transmit malaria. "The POPs treaty could virtually eliminate the use of DDT, perhaps the most affordable and effective pesticide and repellant in existence, " said Richard Tren of the Africa Fighting Malaria, a nonprofit health advocacy group based in South Africa and the U.S. that focuses on the political economy of diseases and disease control in developing countries.

The World Health Organization estimates that each year, malaria kills millions of people and cuts the GDP of African nations by 1.3 percent and costs them $12 billion in economic losses. The POPs treaty will only guarantee that such health and economic devastation continues....

The ongoing malaria catastrophe with its death toll in the millions has not, and in all likelihood, will not, likely get even a fraction of the media coverage devoted to the recent tsunamis - even though its costs are orders of magnitude higher. Fighting malaria by promoting the use of DDT is not nearly as glamorous as publicly pledging millions in tsunami aid or photo-ops in devastated areas - advocating DDT, unfortunately, takes much political courage. But that would be just about the only cost incurred for an effort to save millions of lives and livelihoods.


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THE TIN WHISKER PROBLEM

Another Greenie-imposed burden. Better garbage disposal is all that is really needed

In the cold vacuum of space, on a gleaming metal surface inside the Galaxy 4 communications satellite, tiny whiskers of tin grew in perfect stealth-until May 19, 1998, that is. That's when at least one of those whiskers bridged a pair of metal contacts in the satellite's control processor. The short circuit killed the satellite. Some 40 million pagers stopped working all over the country. Millions of dollars' worth of ATM and credit card transactions were interrupted. The $250 million satellite became, in the words of NASA engineer Henning Leidecker, "a doorstop in space."

The loss of Galaxy 4 was just one of the more visible consequences of a little-understood problem with catastrophic potential for electronic and electrical systems: metal that grows whiskers. An F-15's radar system, pacemakers, fuse switches in air-to-air missiles, electronic relays in a nuclear power plant, and global positioning system receivers-not to mention many other satellites-all have fallen victim to the problem. One group of University of Maryland theorists has estimated that tin whiskers have caused losses of billions of dollars to date.....

Until the new millennium the tin-whisker problem actually seemed like a plague of the past. The metallurgical bug first became apparent in the late 1940s to telecommunications engineers who were investigating why relays in telephone switching systems were failing. The research community came up with a whisker-quashing solution: Add 2% to 3% lead to the tin plating used in electronic assemblies, particularly on wires and leads to make them solderable. Lead-tin alloys became standards for the industry, and their use relegated tin whiskers, at least for most of us, to nuisance status.

As often happens, the solution became a problem: Lead became a material non grata and for good reason. It does a nasty number on neural circuitry, especially if you're a kid. To reduce human exposure to lead, governments have regulated it out of paint, gasoline, plumbing, and other sources. The relatively small amount of lead in electronic and electrical systems-about 0.2 gram in an Intel processor and about two to three grams in a motherboard-hadn't attracted much attention, but that changed as the volume of electronic waste showing up in landfills began ballooning.

Although some companies had been anticipating an era of lead-free electronics for more than a decade and already are shipping lead-free products, the get-the-lead-out clock started ticking in earnest for the entire electronics industry in 2002 when the European Union enacted the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directives. Among other things, the directives mandate that by July 1, 2006, only lead-free electronic and electrical products will be legally salable in member countries. Unfortunately, no one knows for sure whether there is a no-lead substitute that will be immune to whisker growth. And that means tin whiskers and the failures they can foment could become as familiar in electronic products as flat tires are in cars....

Almost as out of sight to most people as the tin whiskers themselves is a worldwide network of detail-minded engineers, metallurgists, technology managers, chip manufacturers, government officials, and others who are racing against the clock to make sure that the get-the-lead-out movement does not awaken the tin-whisker dragon. They have until about right now to come up with a solution if they want to make sure that the products that ship in the coming months and years do not collectively harbor a Y2K of sorts-the wide distribution of everything from microwave ovens to missiles that are more prone to whisker-induced failure than most electronic products have been for the past half-century.

"You don't want to go out and buy a brand-new HDTV, only for it to fail before you've finished your payments," says Gedney. Researchers have come up with a variety of potential solutions. Semiconductor maker Agere Systems, for example, announced in September that it will undercoat the leads on the components it uses with nickel before it puts pure tin on top. Engineers also have developed a tin-silver-copper alloy that appears to limit whiskers to a mostly manageable fact of metallic life.

However promising those lead-free solutions might look in laboratory and beta tests, however, the real assessment of their long-term ability to keep whiskering at bay will be taking place over the next few years in the wild as lead-free electronic systems are made and sold throughout the world. It's a done deal for any electronics industry player that wants to remain in the game, but all are moving forward with the nagging anxiety that they might be setting trillions of individual stages for the quiet, stealthy growth of metal whiskers that can do no good.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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GLOBAL WARMING FALLACIES

Distinguished climatologist, Prof. Reid A. Bryson has dismissed the global warming scare as follows:

Hardly a day goes by without a news article in the paper containing a reference to someone's opinion about "Global Warming". A quick search of the Internet uncovers literally hundreds of items about "Global Warming". Issues of atmospheric science journals will normally have at least one article on climatic change, usually meaning "Global Warming" or some aspect thereof. Whole generations of graduate students have been trained to believe that we know the main answers about climate change and only have to work out the details.

Why then do I bother you by introducing this section with such a ludicrous title? I do it because, as one who has spent many decades studying the subject professionally, I find that there are enormous gaps in the understanding of those making the most strident claims about climatic change. In order to read the news rationally, the educated reader needs a few keys to quickly sort the patently absurd from the possibly correct. I propose to supply some of those keys to give the reader at least a rudimentary nonsense detector.

Some Common Fallacies

1. The atmospheric warming of the last century is unprecedented and unique. Wrong. There are literally thousands of papers in the scientific literature with data that shows that the climate has been changing one way or the other for at least a million years.

2. It is a fact that the warming of the past century was anthropogenic in origin, i.e. man-made and due to carbon dioxide emission. Wrong. That is a theory for which there is no credible proof. There are a number of causes of climatic change, and until all causes other than carbon dioxide increase are ruled out, we cannot attribute the change to carbon dioxide alone.

3. The most important gas with a "greenhouse" effect is carbon dioxide. Wrong. Water vapor is at least 100 times as effective as carbon dioxide, so small variations in water vapor are more important than large changes in carbon dioxide.

4. One cannot argue with the computer models that predict the effect of a doubling of carbon dioxide or other "greenhouse gasses". Wrong. To show this we must show that the computer models can at least duplicate the present-day climate. This they cannot do with what could be called accuracy by any stretch of the imagination. There are studies that show that the average error in modeling present precipitation is on the order of 100%, and the error in modeling present temperature is about the same size as the predicted change due to a doubling of carbon dioxide. For many areas the precipitation error is 300-400 percent.

5. I am arguing that the carbon dioxide measurements are poorly done. Wrong. The measurements are well done, but the interpretation of them is often less than acceptably scientific.

6. It is the consensus of scientists in general that carbon dioxide induced warming of the climate is a fact. Probably wrong. I know of no vote having been taken, and know that if such a vote were taken of those who are most vocal about the matter, it would include a significant fraction of people who do not know enough about climate to have a significant opinion. Taking a vote is a risky way to discover scientific truth.

So What Can We Say about Global Warming?

We can say that the Earth has most probably warmed in the past century. We cannot say what part of that warming was due to mankind's addition of "greenhouse gases" until we consider the other possible factors, such as aerosols. The aerosol content of the atmosphere was measured during the past century, but to my knowledge this data was never used.

We can say that the question of anthropogenic modification of the climate is an important question -- too important to ignore. However, it has now become a media free-for-all and a political issue more than a scientific problem. What a change from 1968 when I gave a paper at a national scientific meeting and was laughed at for suggesting that people could possibly change the climate!

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FAKED CONSENSUS

A letter sent to the WSJ by David Douglass, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester

Antonio Regalado reported (WSJ Dec 17) on a recent Statement, Human Impacts on Climate Change, issued by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) council. Regalado's piece, Panel Shifts Stance on Global Warming, is an accurate report of the AGU Statement. However, the Statement does not necessarily represent the views of the 41,000 members of the AGU. The AGU council consists of 28 people, most of whom are not climate scientist, who speak only for themselves. This Statement was prepared by them in secret during a large meeting of the AGU in San Francisco but announced the next week at a press conference in Washington with no prior opportunity for the other 40, 972 members of AGU to see and comment on it.

The essence of the Statement can be characterized by the sentence: "... carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will cause global surface climate to be warmer." The rest of the Statement asserts that this is true but this is only a Hypothesis that must be tested against observations. The Statement goes on to say that the climate system is difficult to predict, yet computer models predict: mid-continents will warm; warming will be greater at higher latitudes; some polar ice will melt; oceans will warm; sea levels will rise; and hydrological cycle will change. Quite a list of catastrophes. These predictions are offered as evidence to support the Hypothesis. However, this is not evidence. These are only a manifestation of and an extension of the Hypothesis. A consensus of the 41,000 AGU membership implied or even honestly obtained is also not evidence.

What is the evidence that the Hypothesis is correct? The Statement only offers this: "... no single threshold level of green house gases ... at which the beginning of dangerous level anthropogenic interference with the climate system can be defined. Some impacts have already occurred..." What are these impacts? They offer neither examples of impacts nor any other evidence to support the Hypothesis.

Have the models been successful in predicting anything? They, of course, predict global warming. This is not surprising given the expressed belief of some of the model builders in the global warming Hypothesis and the many parameters in the model that need to be determined. However, the models also predict unambiguously that the atmosphere is warming faster than the surface of the earth; but all the available observational data unambiguously shows the opposite!

Truth in science is always determined from observational facts. One finds the truth by making a hypothesis and comparing observations with the hypothesis. It is absolutely essential that one should be neutral and not fall in love with the hypothesis. If the facts are contrary to any predictions then the hypothesis is wrong no matter how appealing. Truth by Assertion is not science

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 to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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WINDMILLS BRUTAL TO BATS

Australia has unusually large bats -- which we refer to as "flying foxes", though in the body they are in fact smaller than most cats. I grew up in tropical Australia seeing huge black flocks of them flying overhead at nightfall from their "camps" towards the fruit trees. So I have some affection for the remarkable little mammals that provided such a notable display every evening

"Jessica Kerns thought her survey of new power-generating wind turbines on a mountaintop in West Virginia would yield the standard result: a smattering of dead birds that were whacked by the whirring blades. But the University of Maryland doctoral student turned up something unexpected amid the trees and rolling ridges of Backbone Mountain: hundreds of bat carcasses, some with battered wings and bloodied faces. "It was really a shock," Kerns said.

Thousands of bats have died at Backbone and on another nearby wind farm in Meyersdale, Pa. -- more per turbine than at any other wind facility in the world, according to researchers' estimates. The deaths are raising concerns about the impact of hundreds more turbines planned in the East, including some in western Maryland, as the wind industry steps up expansion beyond its traditional areas in the West and Great Plains. The bat deaths, which have baffled researchers, pose a problem for an industry that sells itself as an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional power plants. Wind proponents already have had to battle complaints about bird deaths from the blades and about unsightly turbines marring pristine views.

The white turbines in Appalachia rise more than 340 feet above the ground -- well above the tree canopy -- and are lined up close to one another to catch the wind as it blows over the mountains and ridges.

The bat problem could worsen, conservationists fear, as wind developers rush to erect new turbines following the recent renewal of a federal tax break for a year. The wind industry, which had been virtually dormant since the last tax break expired a year ago, projects more wind turbines to be built around the country this year than in any previous year. In the areas near where bats have been killed in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, activists said, roughly 700 new turbines have been proposed or approved. "Take the most conservative estimates of mortality and multiply them out by the number of turbines planned and you get very large, probably unsustainable kill rates," said Merlin D. Tuttle, president and founder of Bat Conservation International, whose Austin-based group is leading the research effort in Appalachia. "One year from now we could have a gigantic problem."

Bats serve an important role in nature, and their populations are believed to be in decline, scientists said. The bats getting killed in Appalachia devour insects that pose grave threats to crops such as corn and cotton. They also feast on pests that can spread disease, such as mosquitoes."

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THE "LOVE CANAL" SCARE DEBUNKED AGAIN:

But the tactics never die

As 2004 came to an end, there was an Associated Press story about a study that had stretched into seven years and cost at least $3 million. What the study found was that, in an area of Niagara Falls, NY called Love Canal, the "preliminary findings indicate no spikes in cancer or death rates and, minimal, if any, effects on births."

In the late 1970s, Love Canal had become synonymous with corporate evil and a threat to the lives of some 900 families. President Carter declared a federal emergency that led to the evacuation of those families and the bulldozing of an elementary school and two streets on the Canal over or adjacent to which they had been built. Years before, Hooker Chemicals & Plastics Corporation had used the abandoned Canal, with the full knowledge of Niagara Falls city leaders, to dump 21,800 tons of chemical byproducts. Despite that, in 1957 the city had punched a sewer line through the Canal walls, thus allowing wastes from the dump to seep throughout the neighborhood sewer system. The city's Board of Education, which bought the site in1953, was aware of the hazards that lay beneath the subsurface construction, but deliberately ignored the problem to build a school.

Niagara Falls, despite its fame as a destination for newlyweds and other tourists, was actually more dependent for its local economy on the chemical industry and, in the 1950s, if you flew over, you could actually see the smog that covered it with a gray-brown cloud. "Chemical Row" along Buffalo Avenue, skirting the southern edge of the city, was the area's larger employer and evoked a great deal of civic pride. Hooker Chemical had chosen the segment of the abandoned Love Canal because its soil was a form of impermeable clay and the area was sparsely populated. That was before the baby boom that followed World War II began to demand more housing and more schools.

On October 16, 1952, Hooker donated the land to the Board of Education for $1.00 after unsuccessfully trying to get the property restricted for use only as a park. Failing to get agreement, Hooker insisted on a deed restriction that would warn all future property owners of the presence of dangerous chemicals. All kinds of construction, including the sanitary sewer noted above would follow. In 1968, the New York State Department of Transportation disturbed still more of the buried chemicals during the construction of an expressway.

By 1978, a series of articles by Michael Brown, a reporter for the Niagara Gazette, set events in motion that led to Love Canal's becoming the symbol, not of the failure of city fathers to act responsibly, but of Hooker Chemical & Plastic Corporation's alleged bad faith. Environmentalists had a field day with the story and it became an element in any number of similar scare campaigns to frighten Americans about chemical storage dumps, radon, and asbestos.

The media was-and continues to be-complicit in all of the hysteria. The $3 million study, however, has found no relationship between cancer or any other malady and having had a home in the Love Canal area or of having attended school there, despite the fact that by the 1960s and 1970s contaminated groundwater was leaching into back yards and the school grounds. As the State Health Department reported in 2001, there was no greater incidence of cancer among the people who formerly lived in Love Canal than for any other comparable group of upstate New Yorkers. Love Canal, the famed pit of environmental pestilence, was remarkably benign.

One would hope the public would get a bit more savvy about these scare campaigns, whether they are leveled against the chemical industry, the pharmaceutical industry or any other industry said to exist solely for the purpose of killing all its customers. The fact that people today still think of Love Canal as a place that caused widespread disease and death is a travesty. Love Canal, the symbol of corporate evil, was and is a lie. It began with the failure of the city fathers and the Board of Education to act responsibly. It escalated thanks to the hysteria drummed up by local environmentalists.

It is comparable to all the lies you hear and read daily, perpetrated by environmentalists who thrive on scare campaigns. Remember that the next time someone glibly refers to Love Canal or global warming. You are being duped. Again.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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GREENIES BACK DOWN ON DDT!

How awful! Now all the birds are going to die and we will all have a "silent spring". How COULD they back down on something as important and well-proven as that?

The World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace apparently have reversed their long-standing opposition to the use of DDT to fight malaria. In his column in the New York Times (Jan. 8), Nicholas Kristof quotes spokesmen from WWF and Greenpeace as supporting the use of DDT in anti-malarial programs:

* "I called the World Wildlife Fund, thinking I would get a fight. But Richard Liroff, its expert on toxins, said he could accept the use of DDT when necessary in anti-malaria programs. 'South Africa was right to use DDT,' he said. 'If the alternatives to DDT aren't working, as they weren't in South Africa, geez, you've got to use it. In South Africa it prevented tens of thousands of malaria cases and saved lots of lives.'"

* "At Greenpeace, Rick Hind noted reasons to be wary of DDT, but added: 'If there's nothing else and it's going to save lives, we're all for it. Nobody's dogmatic about it.'"

DDT was banned by the U.S. -- and for practical purposes by the rest of the world -- in 1972 following an intense lobbying campaign by the Environmental Defense Fund. Tens of millions of people -- mostly pregnant women and children -- have died from malaria during the last 30 years. Many, if not most, of these deaths may have been avoided had DDT been more widely used.

The WWF nevertheless maintains on its web site that "DDT should be phased out and ultimately banned." Greenpeace has long called for banning DDT, and has been a leading advocate of the POPs Treaty, which would make DDT more difficult to use in anti-malaria programs, if not operate as a de facto ban.

It might be easy for some to dismiss the past 43 years of eco-hysteria over DDT with a simple "Nevermind..." -- a la Saturday Night Live's Emily Litella -- except for the blood of millions of people dripping from the hands of the WWF, Greenpeace, Rachel Carson, Environmental Defense Fund and other junk science-fueled opponents of DDT.

I suppose it's possible that WWF's Richard Liroff and Greenpeace's Rick Hind were misquoted by Kristof or that they don't really mean what they say. But if they really stand by use of DDT in anti-malarial programs, JunkScience.com calls on the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace to apply their multi-million dollar budgets toward ensuring that not another death occurs that could have been prevented by DDT.

A pity that millions of people in poor countries had to die of malaria while the Greenies changed their minds!

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MORE BACKGROUND ON GREENIES AND DDT

The organisation that has spent decades attacking corporate interests and the institutions of capitalism wasn't attacked by the oil or chemicals industry, but by the New York based Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). In what is increasingly a black and white issue, CORE charges Greenpeace with being racist and keeping Africa poor, sick and underdeveloped. Last Saturday, Greenpeace organised a run in Liberty State Park, New York, to campaign against chemicals that it considers to be a danger to human health. CORE arranged a rival event at the same venue to highlight Greenpeace1s policies and their damaging and sometimes deadly effects on Africa. CORE's spokesman, Niger Innis lambasted Greenpeace for being a "powerful elite of First World activists whose hardcore agenda puts people last."

Greenpeace has been at the head of campaigns to ban the use of the insecticide DDT. Green groups were successful in banning DDT use in agriculture in most countries during the 1970s. The insecticide is still permitted for use in public health programmes where it saves lives from mosquito borne diseases such as malaria. Despite the fact that it saves lives every day, Greenpeace still campaigns against its production, trade and use. Greenpeace and others campaign against most pesticide use, but most Greens are particularly fond of attacking DDT; many environmentalists cut their teeth on the DDT issue. Their influence stretches far beyond disaffected anti-globalisation students from rich countries who are desperate to be angry. The World Health Organisation, World Bank and United Nations Environment Programme are all against the use of DDT and are encouraging African governments to reduce its use.

The upshot of this pressure is that lives are lost. In 1996 South Africa submitted to Green pressure and removed DDT from its malaria control programme. The result was one of the worst malaria epidemics in the country1s history as malaria cases rose by around 1000% in just a few years and hundreds upon hundreds of lives were lost. South Africa thankfully did the right thing and reintroduced DDT in 2000. In one year, the number of cases fell by 80% in the worst hit province, KwaZulu Natal.

Despite the clear evidence in favour of DDT, Green groups continue to insist that DDT is dangerous to the environment and to human health. In reality DDT is sprayed in tiny quantities on the inside walls of houses and simply does not escape into the wider environment. Even if it did, the environmental impacts of DDT have always been grossly exaggerated. As to the human health impacts of DDT use, in the 60 years of its use, not one scientific study has been able to replicate a case of actual human harm from the chemical. In all that time and with widespread use, one would think that someone somewhere would have had some ill effect from DDT if it was so dangerous, yet apparently not. In any event, the human health dangers from malaria far outweigh those of DDT.

Perhaps it isn't surprising that groups like Greenpeace campaign against something that could save lives. Charles W_rster, a leading environmentalist with the Environmental Defence Fund captured Green thinking succinctly in 1972 when the US Environmental Protection Agency was in the process of banning DDT. When someone pointed out to him that banning DDT would cost lives in poor countries he is reported to have said: "So what? People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them and this is as good a way as any."

Modern greens may be more subtle now, but their misanthropic philosophy still runs deep. If Greenpeace really cared about people, as it likes to portray, why would it campaign against GM technology in agriculture? GM food, which has been consumed in the US for many years, has been shown to be safe for human consumption and to improve agricultural yields. If Africa were free to adopt GM technology, not only could we feed more people and reduce starvation, but we could increase farmers' incomes.

Campaigns against the burning of fossil fuels to provide energy ignore some basic realities and highlight the outrageous naivete of Greenpeace. In almost any African or Indian city, young children suffer from terrible and life threatening respiratory diseases as a result of burning biomass like wood and dung indoors to provide heat. Even the dirtiest coal-fired power plant providing cheap electricity would be a technological advance that would reduce illness. Yet Greenpeace prefers to promote expensive, renewable energy such as solar or wind power, even though this would keep electricity well out of reach of poor people in Africa.

Greenpeace's run in New York was organised by white, wealthy and healthy New Yorkers that were seemingly amazed that anyone would be opposed to their views. Their quizzical looks at the sight of 70 black CORE activists chanting "Africa Yes, Greenpeace NO" betrayed their ignorance of the policies for which their organisation stands. Liberty State Park is a million miles from the poverty and disease in Africa that Greenpeace is helping to perpetuate. But the rally was held in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, that beacon of hope and freedom that so many oppressed people around the globe look up to.

If the Greenpeace activists were capable of looking beyond the ends of their noses, they might have recognised the importance of the statue towering above them. Africa needs the liberty that the US enjoys. We need the liberty and freedom to use whatever technology we require without interference and restrictions from organisations like Greenpeace that have little interest in human life. We need free trade and individual liberties that made the US the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth. We don1t need the racist, misguided and life-threatening anti-growth campaigns run by eco-imperialist Greenpeace.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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NATURE-LOVERS WELCOME THE TSUNAMI

For most observers the South Asian tsunami disaster appears to be one of the most devastating tragedies in modern history. But some environmentalists are actually celebrating the tidal wave that killed nearly 200,000 people, saying it rid the coastal area of development and other forms of human contamination. "This whole area was littered with commercialism," regular visitor Greg Ferrando told the Associated Press on Friday as he surveyed the damage in Phuket, Thailand. "There were hundreds of beach chairs out here. I prefer the sand. Everyone is talking about it. It looks much better now," he added. "This looks a lot more like Hawaii now, where vendors aren't allowed on the beach." ....

Moriel Avital, a 24-year-old Israeli who lived on the island for four months, said there was a lesson in the tsunami. "It's telling people not to mess with nature," she said. "Paradise should be paradise and should not become this civilized." ....

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Environmentalist BS never stops: "Environmental activists are shamelessly trying to exploit last week's earthquake-tsunami catastrophe in hopes of advancing their global warming and anti-development agendas. Two days after the tragedy, the executive director of Greenpeace UK told the British newspaper The Independent, 'No one can ignore the relentless increase in extreme weather events and so-called natural disasters, which in reality are no more natural than a plastic Christmas tree.' Friends of the Earth Director Tony Juniper told the same British newspaper, 'Here again are yet more events in the real world that are consistent with climate change predictions.'" So global warming even causes movement in the earth's tectonic plates. Haven't heard that one before!

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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A TINY ROLLBACK OF GREENIE NONSENSE

Idaho and Montana will get more authority to manage gray wolves under a new rule adopted by the federal government, wildlife officials announced Monday. The rule, which takes effect Feb. 2, gives the states and private landowners more control in curbing wolf attacks on livestock, domestic animals and wild game herds. Ed Bangs, wolf recovery team leader for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the new rule would especially help private landowners by allowing wolves to be killed without prior written approval if ranchers can prove the animals are harassing livestock. "Under the old rule, the wolf had to have its teeth in the livestock," Bangs said. "Under the new rule, it has to be a foot away, chasing them."

Wolf kills still must be backed by physical evidence, such as bitten livestock or broken fences and trampled vegetation, Bangs said.

The agency reintroduced the gray wolf into central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in 1995. The wolves have thrived and now exceed the population goals set by wildlife officials, with about 825 animals living in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. But before the wolves can be removed from protections under the Endangered Species Act, each of the three states must have management plans approved by the federal government. Idaho and Montana plans have been approved, but Wyoming's was rejected and that state is suing. The wolves cannot be removed from the endangered species list until that dispute is resolved.

Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton told a telephone news conference that the new rule reflected the plans of Idaho and Montana. It also gives the states more authority to kill wolves that are reducing big game herds. Bangs said the new federal guidelines would likely "result in removing about 10 percent of the population, which is still well within what the population is able to stand."

Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne (R) said the rule was a welcome change. "The old rule . . . was written to protect 25 to 40 wolves when they were initially reintroduced. The dynamic has changed, so management must also change," Kempthorne said.

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Anti-biotech fanatics: "The 'new biotechnology,' or gene-splicing, applied to agriculture and food production is here to stay. More than 80 percent of processed foods on supermarket shelves -- soft drinks, preserves, mayonnaise, salad dressings -- include ingredients from gene-spliced plants, and Americans have safely consumed more than a trillion servings of these foods. But opposition continues to genetically improving plants by use of these precise and predictable techniques, largely due to a drumbeat of misrepresentations by antibiotechnology activists. Some of these radicals, like Greenpeace, make no secret they intend to stop at nothing to eliminate gene-splicing from agriculture, while other groups claim not to oppose gene-splicing but only to want it 'properly' regulated."

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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SOME EXCELLENT PERSPECTIVE ON THE ENVIRONMENT FROM INDIA

"As the death toll keeps rising, it seems certain that the tsunami on December 26 killed more than the 140,000 who died at Hiroshima. A search for culprits has begun, but is misdirected. The real culprit is nature. Ecologists have created the myth that nature represents a harmonious equilibrium threatened by human excesses. In fact nature's apparent harmony is a short-term illusion between cataclysms. Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything reveals enough natural dangers to make man's survival so far seem a miracle.

Nature's vagaries have made extinct 99.99% of the 30 billion species created since life began. The Ordovician and Devonian extinctions wiped out 80-85% of all living species. The Permian extinction (245 million years ago) wiped out 95%. Humans have done their bit too. Estimates of man-made extinctions range from two per month to 600 per week. Yet, even the high figure pales besides nature's own extinctions. Humans have survived only by squeezing through a series of closing doors over millennia.

The last 2.5 million years witnessed 17 major ice ages, all killers. The periods between the ice ages represented global 'global warming', and were (ironically) saviours. Maybe greenhouse emissions will cause calamitous weather changes in a century. But a greater disaster by far will be the next ice age. The interval between ice ages has been as short as 8,000 years. The last ice age was 10,000 years ago. A new one is due.

We worry that greenhouse gases could raise the earth's temperature by 3 degrees in the next century. But nature itself creates more dramatic warmings. Ice cores from Greenland reveal episodes when temperatures shot up by 15 degrees in 10 years.

Since 1850, humans have lofted seven billion tonnes per year of carbon into the atmosphere. But nature belches 30 times more through volcanoes and decaying vegetation. One single volcanic explosion at Krakatoa, Indonesia, in 1883 threw more particulate matter into the atmosphere than all the industrial smoke ever generated by humans, and created tsunamis that reached Britain. A volcanic eruption at Sumbawa, Indonesia, in 1815 was equivalent to 60,000 Hiroshima bombs. Thirty six cubic miles of dust and ash cloaked the sun globally. Summer failed to warm the earth as usual, leading to the worst year in history for agriculture. Crops failed everywhere, causing famines and epidemics.

Even bigger was the Toba volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago in Sumatra, which led to at least six years of 'volcanic winter'. This is believed by scientists to have brought humans to the verge of extinction: maybe only a few thousand of us survived.

Supervolcanos like Yellowstone Park, USA, will one day wipe us out. Yellowstone's geysers are a tourist attraction, caused by boiling rock underground. These create 1,260 earthquakes a year, most too small to be felt. Yellowstone is the crater of an old supervolcano that has exploded periodically every 600,000 years or so. The last explosion was 630,000 years ago. The next is due".

More here. (Via Commonsense & Wonder)




THE "SETTLED" SCIENCE OF GLOBAL WARMING

It is anything but. Saying it is "settled" is just a desperate attempt to deny reality

Like so many in the media, Mr. Fikes has apparently accepted without much independent thought the prevailing view of global warming and its causes in human activity. He doesn't like the idea that someone like Crichton could question the mainstream view of science. He continues the argument that global warming is real, and the industrialized world we have created is the source of the problem. But is the Earth's atmosphere actually warming, and if it is, what is the real cause?

Recently released reports from Ohio State University, as well as a new study by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, suggest an alternative explanation: fluctuations in solar radiation. The Ohio State study, authored by professor Lonnie G. Thompson, whose area of expertise is earth system science, paleoclimatology, glaciology, and polar geology, showed that there was a sudden climate change approximately 5,200 years ago. Based on carbon dating of plants uncovered by retreating glaciers in Peru, this sudden lowering of the Earth's temperature coincides with radical fluctuations in solar radiation in the same period. Thompson cited evidence that shows that solar radiation first dropped significantly, and then rose over a very short period. He believes this severe oscillation caused the dramatic cooling that followed this solar event.

Some scientists have concluded that these solar oscillations may relate to sun spot activity. As reported at the American Geophysical Union's spring 2002 meeting, scientists have long known that a global cooling period known as the Little Ice Age occurred between A.D. 1450 and 1850, which also corresponded to similarly significant oscillations in solar radiation. This has also been known among climatologists as the Maunder Minimum. In the preceding years, Greenland was actually green.


The Late Maunder Minimum, between A.D. 1670 and 1710, corresponded with known decreased sun spot activity. During this time, northern Europe saw very cold winters, with the canals of Holland freezing solid, as depicted in many Dutch paintings from the period.


Another aspect of the global warming debate to consider is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Today, carbon dioxide is commonly considered a human source resulting from burning of fossil fuels, and the primary ingredient of so-called "greenhouse gases." According to Harvard University professor of geochemistry Daniel Schrag, current levels are about 380 parts per million, and are expected to rise to 1,000 ppm by the end of this century. Not since the Eocene epoch, 55 million to 60 million years ago, have carbon dioxide levels been that high, which begs the question, "What caused those high levels of carbon dioxide?" Could something other than human activity have caused such high levels? Since humans weren't even on the scene for another 53 million to 58 million years, it seems rather unlikely that we were the source of these levels of carbon dioxide during the Eocene.


The point of raising these alternative explanations for the modest rise in global temperatures is that we simply don't have enough data to conclude that human activity is the root cause. It seems probable that human activity is a contributing factor to global warming, but not to the level of confidence that warrants the potential costs of billions of dollars that the U.S. economy, industry and the American people will bear by accepting the terms of the Kyoto Protocol. The penalties imposed by Kyoto could mean the loss of many tens of thousands of American jobs. Moreover, focusing on just this one aspect of global warming causes could result in overlooking other potentially more significant sources and possible solutions.


It also strikes me that those who are the most disturbed by prospects of global warming seem to have a static view of the environment. The Earth is really a living biosphere that is constantly changing. New species are being discovered all the time, and it's possible that some of these are newly emerging species. At the same time, many species are going extinct as well. The creation of new species and the extinction of older species is a natural part of evolution, and of our constantly and naturally changing environment.


I haven't had the opportunity to read Michael Crichton's new book, but from what I have read about it, his objective is to raise questions about the commonly held view of global warming and the motivations of those who are that perspective's strongest advocates. Based on all I have heard, read, seen and learned about the subject, the science is not even close to being settled. There are those who, for one reason or another, accept as fact that human activity is the source of global warming. There are also a significant number of scientists who do not, and in spite of what Mr. Fikes' opinion is on the subject, much more research is needed before the subject can be settled.


The worst part of the current debate is the fact that it is no longer a scientific debate but a political one. A scientist working in most universities today who argues against the politically correct point of view will see his grant money dry up, as well as his future if untenured. I find it also very curious that those opposed to globalization and the free market capitalism have such a convenient argument against modern industry and business.


Before you accept the notion that the success of American industry and American consumerism is responsible for global warming, consider who among us are most vociferously exclaiming our culpability.


More here


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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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GREENIE LIES BEING FED TO SCHOOLKIDS

Too often, environmental teaching takes the form of fearful and gloomy messages, presented to children as early as kindergarten or even preschool. It's a disturbing trend with potentially devastating ramifications. In 1994, Nancy Bray Cardozo, writing in Audubon magazine, shared her uneasiness about children's environmental education. Her 6-year-old daughter had received a hand-me-down bed from an aunt, and she was about to sleep in it for the first time. Cardozo noticed that something was bothering her daughter, and she asked what it was. The little girl told her, "They killed trees to make my bed.' The gloom and anxiety often overshadow the facts. Students become alarmed about toxic waste, acid rain, deforestation and global warming, without ever learning basic scientific facts about these complex issues.

Environmental education became popular in the 1990s, when global warming and species extinction issues reached fever pitch. Parents noticed their children coming home with strange ideas about the natural world. Adults were condemned for normal things like having a job as a logger, or driving cars. One parent wrote to The New York Times, "I have noticed a disturbing trend. With each passing school year, my children are more convinced that humans and technology are bad for the planet.' Observations like these prompted Michael Sanera and me to review high school textbooks covering history, biology, civics and environmental science to examine how they dealt with environmental issues. What we found led to our book "Facts, Not Fear.'

The misinformation was astounding. For example, to illustrate the dangers of global warming, several textbooks publish pictures of how flooded cities might look if the ice caps melted including drawings of New York with all but the tallest buildings submerged. Actually, scientists anticipate that global warming might lift sea levels by between 6 and 40 inches not hundreds of feet. Other textbooks have graphs showing world population climbing inexorably upward. In fact, population growth rates have been declining since the mid- 1960s, and most demographers expect the world's population to level in about 50 years.

When it comes to forests, young people receive images of severe devastation in the United States. "Large areas of forest also have been wasted,' says "Biology: Living Systems' (Oram, 1989), implying that cutting trees to build houses or make paper was a waste of resources. "Environmental Science: Framework for Decision Making' (Chiras, 1988) reports: "Commercial interests in the United States took an especially narrow view of the forests until after World War II, seeking monetary gain with little concern for the future.' Rarely do students learn the economic realities of sustaining forests, or that until the early 1900s abundant wood and low timber prices made replanting trees a losing business proposition, or that even Gifford Pinchot, the famed first director of the Forest Service, was unable to make any money planting trees when he managed timber in North Carolina.

Jim Bowyer, a professor of forest products at the University of Minnesota, became concerned about student attitudes when he taught a course called "Natural Resources as Raw Materials.' Some students were overtly hostile to forestry and he tried to find out why. So, he developed a survey on forestry and related environmental issues in the late 1990s that was taken by more than 2,000 students at 11 universities in the United States. The results were troubling. Seventy-three percent of the students believed: "At current rates of deforestation, 40 percent of the current forests in the United States will be lost by the middle of the next century.' In fact, the forested area of the United States has been stable since 1920 and more timber is grown than is cut every year. Seventy-two percent of the students thought that populations of elk, pronghorn antelope and wild turkey have declined in the past 50 years. Truth is, they have increased dramatically.

What bothered Bowyer most was a comment made in a classroom. He had asked the students how old a tree lives on average. Some thought several thousand years others "until the tree is cut down.' In other words, some thought that trees could live forever. As Bowyer discovered, students are not simply uninformed they are misinformed in one direction. They are led to think that our natural resources, including our forests, are in danger of elimination....

A study by the Independent Commission on Environmental Education (now the Environmental Literacy Council) concluded: "Many high- school environmental-science textbooks have serious flaws. Some provide superficial coverage of science. Others mix science with advocacy.'

Source





AN HILARIOUS GREENIE DEFINITION OF "SUCCESS"

If it costs the taxpayer heaps and hardly anybody wants it, then it MUST be good!

Despite spending millions to promote its clean-energy effort, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has lost nearly 75 percent of the program's participants -- many of them phantom, nonpaying customers. Today, fewer than 2 percent of the DWP's customers are signed up for the Green Power Program, and the number is declining, although millions of dollars was spent to market it, using the controversial contracts with the public relations firms of Fleishman-Hillard and the Lee Andrews Group. Since it was launched in 1999, the program has been the subject of glowing national press coverage -- and stinging internal audits, which found that the conservation effort included more than $4.8 million in marketing costs.

Enrollment in the program has dropped from a peak of nearly 100,000 of the DWP's 1.4 million electricity customers to about 27,000 today. DWP officials acknowledged Tuesday that most of the losses came after a critical audit persuaded them to drop some 60,000 low-income customers who were assigned to the Green Power Program even though they weren't paying the $3 monthly charge for it. Still, the DWP calls the program a success, noting that it's one of the nation's largest such efforts.

The program has dwindled from nearly 40,000 paying customers a couple of years ago to 27,000 today, but DWP officials say it's still one of the bigger energy-conservation efforts in the nation. "Of our paying customers, a lot have stuck with it," said Walter Zeisl, a DWP spokesman for the Green Power Program. "Twenty-seven-thousand customers is still a sizable figure that shows that consumers want to bring environmentally friendly energy to Los Angeles."

The Green Power Program once was the centerpiece of the DWP's energy-conservation efforts, with the utility paying Fleishman-Hillard and the Lee Andrews Group millions of dollars a year to market it. Those contracts have been the target of highly critical audits by City Controller Laura Chick and are now swept up into county and federal investigations of the administration of Mayor James Hahn. Part of the DWP's $3 million annual payment to Fleishman-Hillard involved the Green Power Program, while all of the Lee Andrews Group's $2.4 million annual contract was for the program. Both contracts were terminated in 2004 amid a growing "pay-to-play" scandal involving allegations that city contracts were traded for political donations and favors....

Green Power customers pay an average of $3 a month more on their power bills, with the added cost going toward more expensive renewable energy sources such as solar and geothermal power.....

More here

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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HO HUM! MORE JUNK SCIENCE

This time about damaged babies

Pregnant women who live in areas with high levels of air pollution may give birth to slightly smaller babies, according to U.S. government researchers. A new study of more than 18,000 full-term infants born in California in 2000 found that a mother's exposure to fine-particle air pollution seemed to make a difference in her baby's birth weight and the infant's risk of being below average in size. Fine particulate matter, called PM2.5 by scientists, is composed of microscopic substances such as acids, metals and organic chemicals, and can be seen in the form of a hazy sky. It is given off by the burning of fuels from sources such as cars, power plants and some industrial processes.

In the study, babies born to women who lived in areas with the highest levels of PM2.5 were 26 percent more likely to be small for their gestational age compared with infants born to women from low-pollution areas. The absolute difference between these groups of infants was modest. Among women with the least exposure to fine-particle pollution, 8.5 percent had a baby who was small for gestational age. That compares with 9.2 percent of women with the highest pollution exposure. Similarly, the difference between the groups as far as average birth weight was slight, noted the study's lead author, Dr. Jennifer D. Parker of the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland. "But the results are consistent with other research," she said in an interview with Reuters Health. Therefore, the "body of evidence" points to an effect of air pollution on birth weight, according to Parker.

She and her colleagues report their study findings in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. According to Parker and her colleagues, PM2.5 levels may influence birth weight either indirectly through effects on the mother's health or by directly affecting fetal development. The exact reason for the link between fine-particle pollution and birth weight is not yet clear, however, Parker said. For their study, she and her colleagues analyzed data from air pollution monitoring stations in California and looked at birth records for 18,247 full-term infants whose mothers lived within five miles of a monitoring station during pregnancy.

The women were split into four groups based on their exposure to fine particulate matter and to carbon monoxide. Average birth weight was lowest in the group with the highest exposure to particulate matter, though the difference between this group and the group with the highest average birth weight amounted to 42 grams, or less than two ounces. A limitation of breaking exposures into four broad groups like this is that it cannot determine anything about "extreme" exposures, Parker noted. It's unclear, she said, whether air pollution might have a greater impact on birth weight when a woman works amid car exhaust at a highway toll plaza, for example.

OK. It is not at all clear from the above that any of the results are more than random but let's presume that there is a real effect there. Why might it be? Might it be because poorer people live in more polluted areas because such areas are cheaper? Might it be that poor people in general have lower birthweight babies because of poorer nutrition or other reasons? Brain-size is correlated with IQ (smaller brains mean lower IQ) so work out a few more possible connections from that for yourself. For example: Might clever people be generally richer and not live in such undesirable areas? Might that mean that the poor people in such areas are overall a bit dumber? Might that mean that they have babies with smaller brains? Wouldn't smaller brains tend to mean lower birthweight? You can be sure that such politically incorrect hypotheses were not examined above

Source




GLOBAL COOLING IN NEW ZEALAND

If one-off events in places like Antarctica are proof of global warming, why are not opposite one-off events elsewhere proof of global cooling?

Yes, it was a shocker. Snow, frost, hail and a tornado marked the first month of summer, with the coldest temperatures recorded in December since 1945. National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research figures for last month show it was the fifth coldest since records were established in 1853. The national average temperature was just 13.4C - 2.2C below normal and more like spring than summer. The record-breaking low temperatures not only kept the summer clothes in the cupboard but slowed the growth and ripening of berries, stone fruit and crops. Southerlies produced dramatic amounts of rain, with more than double normal rainfall in eastern regions from Hawkes Bay to Southland. Rainfall was also well above average in Auckland, Coromandel, Waikato, Ruapehu and Wanganui.

Despite that, less than three-quarters of average rainfall was recorded in sheltered parts of Fiordland and south Westland. And if you thought there was a dire shortage of sun, there was. Auckland recorded only 174 hours of sunshine - 83 per cent of the normal figure and the third lowest since records began in 1963. Of the four main centres, Wellington was the sunniest and Christchurch the driest.

Niwa principal climate scientist Dr Jim Salinger said the above-average number of lows centred south of the Chatham Islands produced the strongest south-to-southwest airflow over New Zealand on record. But don't despair. Things are going to improve, apparently. Dr Salinger said northern New Zealand could expect more westerly winds, more settled weather and warmer temperatures late this month and next. The large number of lows was unlikely to repeat itself in January. "Last holiday period, Christmas and New Year were perfect. This year it has been the opposite," Dr Salinger said. "Each season plays itself out differently than the previous year. My expectation is that January will improve."

Coldest December since 1945. Lowest temperature of minus 3.7C recorded in Southland on the 20th. Frost in inland areas of the North Island and the South Island. Gale force southerlies brought hail to Auckland, Port Waikato, Hawkes Bay, Tasman and Canterbury. Snow in the South Island to 600m and light snow on the Desert Road in the Central North Island. Eastern regions from Hawkes Bay to Southland had more than double their normal rainfall.

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 to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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LOMBORG HAS WON!

I have lifted the post below from the excellent Madsen Pirie. See the original for links. I think I have met Madsen Pirie during one or two of my stays in London long ago. I seem to recollect he has a fondness for bow ties

"An engaging article about Bjorn Lomborg by Giles Whittel is in the Jan 1st Weekend Review of the Times. The article covers the familiar ground of Lomborg's work on The Skeptical Environmentalist. What strikes one immediately is Whittel's view that Lomborg, furiously assailed with a passion rarely seen outside of politics and academe, has actually won, and thereby changed the world.

But unlike most contemporary thinkers, including the Nobel laureates with whom he increasingly fraternises, he can claim to have waded into one of the great arguments of the age, initially as a complete novice, and, well, won it.

It is possible for a single person to demolish one of the great myths of their times. Julian Simon whom I greatly liked and respected, did this with the argument that the world was running out of scarce resources. He also helped to kill the Population Time Bomb myth. As in a fairground shooting gallery, a new one pops up whenever one is shot down.

Lomborg's contribution has been to cast doubt upon the extent to which global warming is occurring because of human-generated emissions, and on whether measures like the Kyoto Protocol represent a sensible and effective use of resources. Michael Crichton's State of Fear will probably help to spread Lomborg's doubts at a more popular level. Whittel says that Lomborg should no longer call himself an environmentalist because:

Environmentalists believe that protecting the natural environment has value in and of itself. Lomborg's entire outlook, by contrast, is based on putting people first.

..environmentalists would strive to protect the Amazon rainforest even if no human beings lived there and no medicinal plants grew there. Lomborg, apparently, would not.

"It turns out most people like other sorts of forest much better," he says airily. "Parents like open forest where you can see where the kids are playing. You also want signs to tell you what you're seeing . . . It's a very different kind of forest that most people actually want. You need a parking lot close by, that kind of stuff."

Lomborg has done environmentalists a tremendous service by showing them what happens when they cry wolf. But he's not one of them. He's on the other side now - the one that's winning.

Whittel could be right. While many of the lemmings are still dashing headlong towards the cliff edge, spurring each other on and deriding those who question the direction, more and more are pausing to consider the alternatives.




YES, MINISTER

It seems the Senator Ian Campbell, Minister for the Environment, has been got at by his permanent Secretary of his department, Sir Humphrey Enviroby. An article in the Oz today flags "a forum on global warming in Sydney in April, hosted by the US-based Pew Centre, and involving Australia, New Zealand and business representatives." The Pew Centre is a left-wing environmental organisation.

In particular is his assertion that Perth has had a 12% decrease in rainfall over the last 25 years, which Warwick Hughes has already shown to be a furphy here. As for the sudden collapse of the Larsen Ice Shelf, that was caused by the sudden eruption of a nearby undersea volcanoe which caused local warming.

Those of us who enjoyed watching the "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister" BBC comedy series, which Ex Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser was reported to have said were too close to the truth for comfort, would realise that the following comes as no surprise:

"Having spent several months in his new environment portfolio reviewing the evidence, Senator Campbell said he accepted the greenhouse theory that emissions such as carbon dioxide from industry were the cause of global warming"

Global warming is a billion dollar tax-payer funded gravy train, like the UN which invented it in the first place. As politicians are not elected for their cerebral acuity, Senator Campbell's statement "Even if you're a greenhouse sceptic you need to face the fact that the climate is changing" should be no surprise. That is why it is called climate Minister, because it is always changing!


Post lifted from Mangled Thoughts

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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THE DEATH OF "KYOTO"

An excerpt from "National Review" -- not online:

In Buenos Aires this month, the proponents of the Kyoto Protocol danced their last tango. The treaty, designed to slow the emission of greenhouse gases, effectively died during a U.N. conference there. The treaty will not be ratified by enough countries to take effect, and will expire in 2012. The New York Times and green groups predictably painted the United States as a villain for obstructionism. But it was the Europeans, the principal agitators for Kyoto, who were out of step. At the beginning of the conference, China, India, and the rest of the developing world stood with the U.S. and Australia against limits on energy use. The developing world knows rising energy use is required for its ascent from poverty. Then Italy shocked the participants by announcing its intention to withdraw from Kyoto after 2012. The Italian environment ministers have concluded rightly that Kyoto simply can't work to achieve its stated goals.

The remainder of the meeting took a more constructive turn, as participants focused on building "adaptive capacity" - wealth, infrastructure, technology - to handle any future climate change. To his list of accomplishments as Time's Man of the Year, add George W. Bush's assertion at the beginning of his presidency that the Kyoto Protocol was "fatally flawed." It took three years to sink in, but much of the rest of the world has now come around to his view.




STATE-BASED NONSENSE

Despite the fact that in 1997 the Senate rejected global warming policies that exclude developing nations and harm the U.S. economy (Kyoto does both) by a vote of 95-0 (S. Res. 98) the issue is very much alive here in the United States. At the federal level, Sens. McCain and Lieberman introduced The Climate Stewardship Act (S.139), which would severely cut energy emissions by capping CO2 emissions at 2000 levels by 2010, costing the American economy $106 billion. Fortunately, the bill was not voted on and was referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. Yet Sen. McCain held a hearing on global warming on November 16th, where he attacked the Bush administration's position on global warming. The president continues to oppose Kyoto, but says he wants to focus on domestic plans that include researching alternative forms of energy.

As the debate rages on in Washington, individual states are taking action to limit CO2 emissions on their own, creating a backdoor for possible Kyoto-style regulations. California has already adopted rules to regulate car emissions linked to global warming, adding an estimated $3,000 to the price of every car according to manufacturers. The Golden State also joined with Oregon and Washington to create another group called the West Coast Governor's global warming initiative.

Perhaps the biggest move towards regulation is in the Northeast. Nine states in the region (Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont) formed The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), and Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia are observers in the process. The organization, started by Governor Pataki, aims to enact a cap-and-trade program for power plants in the region. Their goal is to have a program designed by 2005 that allots emissions credits to power providers that they can buy or sell to each other. RGGI plans on regulating other sources of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions in the future.

What's more, some states are also turning towards legal action to limit CO2 emissions. Attorneys general from eight states (California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin) as well as New York City filed a public nuisance lawsuit against five parties because of greenhouse gases (American Electric Power Co., Southern Co., Xcel Energy, Cinergy, and the Federal Tennessee Valley Authority). They make up about 10 percent of America's CO2 emissions. These junk lawsuits are an attempt to use the courts to address an issue that should be dealt with by the legislature. If the suits are successful, America may face a de facto CO2 emissions regime.

Surely, these state-level initiatives will hurt businesses nationally. One RGGI official said that state-level initiatives create calls for federal regulation, comparing their effort to national nitrogen oxide emissions. Businesses may even push for national limits because of the costs of complying with a patchwork quilt of state regulations. Some businesses are even voluntarily limiting their CO2 emissions in order to comply with anticipated state level regulation and avoid legal action. At some point, these companies may call for mandatory standards, which would impose new costs on their rivals.

This backdoor approach to regulation would certainly slow American growth and give the state more control over the private sector. Carbon dioxide restrictions would drastically increase the cost of energy, which goes into every good produced. That's why FreedomWorks is fighting alongside other grassroots organizations like United for Jobs against these initiatives, state by state, and supports including all major producers of CO2 in any and all international discussions.

More here

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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MEDIA BIAS IN FAVOUR OF GREENIE SCARES

"For nearly four years, network news programs have presented a skewed view of global warming and the Kyoto treaty that liberal environmentalists claim would cure it. Those same newscasts have all-but ignored the negative economic consequences that ratifying Kyoto would have on the U.S. The network coverage also largely ignored scientific evidence questioning global warming theory, while touting dramatic claims of liberal environmental activists.

To document how network news has slanted the global warming debate, researchers with the Media Research Center's Free Market Project analyzed all 165 news stories about global warming aired on the three broadcast network evening newscasts and two cable news shows between January 20, 2001 and September 30, 2004. Among the major findings:

* Global Warming More Dangerous Than Kyoto Treaty: Three times as many network stories (46 percent) featured dramatic reports about global warming's potential impact than mentioned the downside of signing the treaty (12 percent).

* NBC, CBS and CNN Ignore Specific Cost of Kyoto: The cost to American taxpayers of adopting the Kyoto provisions have been estimated as high as $440 billion annually. ABC and the Fox News Channel were the only two networks that told viewers about the potentially crippling price tag. Even those were brief mentions in larger reports. NBC, CBS and CNN failed to pass on this essential information. No story on any network was devoted solely to discussing the treaty's economic impact. Broadcast news shows mentioned polar bears three times as often as they discussed any cost attributed to signing Kyoto.

* Bipartisan Opposition to Treaty Unreported: Only one of 165 news stories mentioned that the Senate had voted unanimously 95-0 against Kyoto. Forty-nine stories on all five news programs cited President Bush's blocking or pulling out of Kyoto without mentioning the unanimous vote. That unanimous resolution included Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, though that is never discussed either. The Fox Report was the only show that included this key information about the Senate opposition.

* No Science Debate Allowed: Broadcast news programs presented the claims of liberal environmentalists that global warming is a given, that mankind is to blame for it, or both, 55 percent of the time (77 stories). That's six times more often than they showed valid scientific objection to global warming theories.

* Fox Report the Best News Show, NBC Nightly News the Worst: The best show for covering climate change was the Fox Report. It reported the cost of Kyoto and was the only show to mention the Senate vote opposing the treaty. It also made effective use of experts on both sides. Sixty-four percent of the NBC Nightly News climate change stories were pro-Kyoto - more than any other program. Only three of those stories raised questions about the science behind global warming.

* ABC's Bob Jamieson the Best Reporter, NBC's Robert Hager the Worst: The best reporter was ABC World News Tonight's Bob Jamieson. Jamieson was the sole broadcast reporter who included the costs of signing the climate treaty. Reporter Robert Hager's January 8, 2004 story earned him the title as worst reporter. Hager undermined an interview subject by referring to him as being "with a think tank funded in large part by big oil companies."

The MRC's Free Market Project report concludes with four recommendations. First, news organizations must provide a balance of experts and opinions on both sides of issues in their stories. The global warming stories show that is a major problem. Secondly, news shows need to explain the cost and impact of significant proposals like the Kyoto Treaty. Third, the networks need to be more skeptical of comments made by environmentalists, just as they are skeptical of comments from the business community. Lastly, networks need to find a way to monitor coverage over time so they can track their performance on these key concerns.

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GREEN STEAM

This is one "Green" car I would like to see. Not only does it make more sense than most but I have always been a steam buff. You either "get" steam or you don't. These guys don't care a hoot about the environment of course. They just use it as a pretext for having fun

Have you heard the one about the new green car proposed by British researchers? Using the latest technology, it will be capable of up to 320kmh and runs on steam. It sounds like a joke, but a British design team hopes a prototype steam racer it is building could change public thinking about alternative energy.

The designers of the Inspiration racer aim to smash a long-standing steam land speed record and will put their vehicle through its paces in the middle of the year. They argue steam could also be a viable energy source for everyday motor vehicles because it releases less carbon dioxide (CO2) and almost none of the toxic nitrogen oxygen (NOx) compounds produced by regular engines. "Steam-powered vehicles have potential that today's internal combustion engines lack," the British Steam Car Challenge team said in a statement. "It is hoped that the project will create interest among the next generation of engineers and designers to work towards cleaner and safer forms of transportation, both public and private."

Looking a little like a green Batmobile, Inspiration's power source is a modern take on an old concept. At its heart is a steam turbine capable of producing about 225kilowatts when it is operating at 12,000 rpm. Propane gas is used to heat water to about 400 degrees as it passes through a steam generator. The steam leaves the generator under high pressure and is fed into four nozzles on a two-stage turbine arrangement. The pressure of the steam creates the velocity to power turbine wheels. These turn gears, which in turn drive the car's wheels. The boiler section is in the centre of the car directly behind the driver's seat. There are four separate boilers, which can run independently.

Inspiration's designers hope the vehicle will be able to smash a 1906 record for the highest land speed achieved by a steam-powered vehicle. The record was set by Fred Marriott, who reached a speed of just over 205kmh. Inspiration's developers hope their machine will go as fast as 320kmh.

They said that while a gas/steam engine as used by their vehicle still used fossil fuels, it could be used in "green" commuter cars because it produced fewer harmful pollutants, such as CO 2, carbon monoxide (CO) and NOx, than regular engines. "While hydrocarbon-fuelled external combustion [steam] engines also produce CO 2 and H 2O [water], the process can be more tightly controlled and the production of CO can be drastically reduced," they said. "And, since external combustion engines can operate efficiently at much lower peak temperatures and pressures, the production of NOx compounds is virtually eliminated."

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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GREENIE JEALOUSY DESTROYS GREEN HOUSING

Greenies have that typical Leftist hate of other people doing well

The Sea Ranch coastal development, some 100 miles north of San Francisco in Sonoma County, is probably the best-known attempt to address environmental issues with innovative architecture and private covenants. As the development's Chamber of Commerce puts it, the community has sought to "blend man-made structures with their natural setting, and to `live lightly on the land.'"

The architects who designed the early buildings at The Sea Ranch not only fomented what has become known as the "Sea Ranch Style" but drove the creation of the legal covenants that defined the landscape and created the community that exists today. They advocated "a close relationship to nature and the use of natural materials"; they believed that "buildings can and should become a part of the encompassing landscape."......

In the early 1970s, though, The Sea Ranch became a target for the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, which didn't think people and nature should be mixed in this fashion and opposed any exclusive access to the shoreline, even by the "nature lovers" at The Sea Ranch. Their efforts led to the creation of the California Coastal Commission, a powerful new regulatory body set up to protect the state's coastline. The commission immediately imposed a building moratorium on The Sea Ranch, which lasted from 1973 to 1980.

To end the moratorium, The Sea Ranch had to agree to reduce the number of home sites from 5,200 to 2,300. At the start of the moratorium, there were 300 homes and 1,400 lots sold. The design and landscape restrictions, contrary to the fears of some real estate agents, were increasingly cited by buyers as a selling point. After eight years without building and a severe reduction in lots, however, The Sea Ranch was losing money hand over fist. When building finally did resume, the covenants were loosened considerably to generate a quick infusion of cash.

As a result, there are now effectively two Sea Ranches. As described by Lyndon, "The southern sectors, which were developed in the 1960s and 1970s, have an air of restraint and respect, their houses indeed in partnership with the land. In the northern meadows, houses put up after the early 1980s line up rigidly along the streets and form solid, view-blocking walls along the bluffs. Others protrude, exposed, from the forest above."

And that is how a state effort to protect coastlands derailed the most environmentally progressive development California had ever seen.

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IT'S A WAR

McCain, chief co-sponsor Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), and their advocacy group allies are on offense. They aggressively seek opportunities to publicize their message, expand their support base, and advance their agenda. The same aggressive approach characterizes the climate alarmist camp generally. At home and abroad, in courts and legislatures, in the media and regulatory bodies, alarmists are on the attack:

* Environmental activist groups endlessly lambaste President Bush for "withdrawing" the United States from the Kyoto global warming treaty.

* The British Government's Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir David King, in an attempt to influence U.S. policy, called climate change "the most severe problem that we are facing today-more serious even than the threat of terrorism."

* European Union politicians relentlessly pressed Russian leaders to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

* Twelve state attorneys general (AGs), 14 advocacy groups, and three cities are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for rejecting a petition to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from motor vehicles.

* State legislators introduced at least 60 bills in 2004 proposing some form of CO2 regulation.

* New York Governor George Pataki and nine other Northeastern governors plan to cap CO2 emissions from their states' electric power sector.

* Six New England governors formed a compact with five Eastern Canadian Premiers to reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2010 and 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

* The California Air Resources Board approved its plan to implement AB 1493, a state law mandating "maximum feasible" reductions of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles.

* The AGs of seven states plus the New York City corporation counsel are suing America's five largest electric power producers to require each company to cap its CO2 emissions and then reduce them by a specified percentage annually for at least a decade.

* The National Academy of Sciences published a study predicting apocalyptic climate impacts in California, such as an 8.3øC (14.1øF) increase in average summertime temperatures by 2100, unless urgent action is taken to reduce emissions. [[xi]] The NAS published the study even though its dire forecasts derive from discredited emissions scenarios [[xii]] and a climate model (the U.K. Met office Hadley Centre model) found to be incapable of replicating past U.S. temperature trends regardless of the averaging period used (five-year, 10-year, or 25-year).

* The Sydney Centre for International and Global Law published a report arguing that Australia has a legal obligation, under the 1972 World Heritage Convention, to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and, indeed, to cut greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 60 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Despite this surge of activism, alarmists have scored few if any victories at the national level:

* Senate leaders kept climate language out of the Senate energy bill.

* As already noted, the Senate rejected the McCain-Lieberman bill. Despite pro-Kyoto activists' high-profile efforts to depict President Bush as an environmental criminal, [[xvi]] the environment was not a key issue in the November 2004 elections, and the Senate lost four supporters of McCain-Lieberman-Tom Daschle (D-SD), John Edwards (D-NC), Bob Graham (D-Fla.), and Ernest Hollings (D-SC). In the House, legislation of the McCain-Lieberman variety has no chance of passing or even of coming to a vote.

* Kyoto remains in such disfavor with most Americans that the Democratic Party's 2004 platform-in sharp contrast to the party's 2000 platform-did not even mention the climate treaty negotiated by former standard-bearer Al Gore.

* The Bush Administration backed away from its proposal to award Kyoto-type emission credits to companies registering "voluntary" greenhouse gas emission reductions.

* When EPA rejected the petition to regulate CO2 emissions from motor vehicles, it also disavowed, as no longer representing the agency's views, statements by Clinton administration officials claiming authority under the Clean Air Act to adopt regulatory climate policies.

Supporters of pro-growth energy policy have, in short, done a reasonably good job of fending off several major thrusts by climate alarmists during the past 18 months. However, in politics, as in war, staying permanently on defense rarely leads to victory. A purely defensive posture cedes the initiative to one's opponents, allowing the other team to generate the headlines, capture the public imagination, and frame the terms of debate.

The battle over climate policy is a protracted struggle. To win it, the friends of economic liberty, scientific inquiry, and affordable energy must advance their own vision and compel alarmists to react to it. Taking a leaf out of McCain's playbook, they should introduce their own "Sense of Congress" resolution on climate change, recruit co-sponsors, and "force votes" on the bill, year after year, until it passes.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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Winds, ice motion root cause of decline in sea ice, not warmer temperatures

A report from the University of Washington. Excerpts:

Extreme changes in the Arctic Oscillation in the early 1990s -- and not warmer temperatures of recent years -- are largely responsible for declines in how much sea ice covers the Arctic Ocean, with near record lows having been observed during the last three years, University of Washington researchers say. It may have happened more than a decade ago, but the sea ice appears to still "remember" those Arctic Oscillation conditions, according to Ignatius Rigor, a mathematician with the UW's Applied Physics Laboratory and a presenter at the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting this week in San Francisco.

The Arctic Oscillation is a seesaw pattern in which atmospheric pressure at the polar and middle latitudes fluctuates between positive and negative phases. The wind patterns associated with the Arctic Oscillation affect the surface winds and temperature over North America and Eurasia, as well as the Arctic. The Arctic Oscillation was in an extreme "high," or positive, phase in the early '90s and is generally in a moderate phase today. Rigor and John M. Wallace, UW professor of atmospheric sciences, say the extreme high caused winds at the surface to circulate in ways that blew most of the thicker, older ice out of the Arctic Ocean into the Atlantic. "It was as if winds generated in response to the Arctic Oscillation in those years became a far bigger 'broom' sweeping ice out of the arctic," Rigor says.

At the same time, changes in surface winds started causing the already thin ice to re-circulate back to the Alaska coast more quickly, decreasing the time it had to thicken before another melt season started. Today the ice in places remains just too thin to last through the summer melt, he says. The result is that 70 percent of the ice is 3 years old or younger, Rigor says. In the 1980s, some 80 percent of the ice was 20 to 30 years old or more. As for ice extent -- the area of the ocean covered by ice -- last summer was again among the record low years, nearly 15 percent lower than average. With a wintertime ice pack roughly the size of the United States, that's like having areas equivalent to the states of Texas and Colorado melt away. In the 1980s, it was more an area the size of Rhode Island.

The melting in places was extensive even where local temperatures were colder than normal. This was the case in the summers of 2002 and 2003 for Alaskan coastal waters. "The temperature itself doesn't explain it all," Rigor says, "but the age of sea ice explains more than half the variance in summer sea-ice extent in those coastal waters." ......





The Intellicast weather-watch site has some good articles on climate change by their "Dr. Dewpoint". It is almost a library of refutations for Greenie myths.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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