Who's to blame for high gas prices?
"Gas prices are at record highs again. Many think oil companies are to blame. In fact, a May 2004 poll showed that 77 percent of Californians believed this to be true. However, this just shows the media have failed to properly inform people about who's causing high gas prices. One thing is certain: oil companies are not to blame for high gas prices. These companies are responsible for producing the gasoline we need. In California, where gas prices are among the nation's highest, the oil industry has been repeatedly investigated to find evidence of "price manipulation" and none has ever been found.
Although there are other causes of high gas prices, such as high gasoline taxes, the primary cause is environmental regulation. For example, environmental regulation has significantly restricted drilling for oil in Alaska and on the continental shelf. More drilling will increase the gasoline supply (up to 10 percent from greater Alaskan drilling alone) and thus lower prices.
Further, there are currently 18 different gasoline formulations in use across the United States, making it much more costly to produce and distribute gasoline. These blends aren't needed due to requirements of automobile engines, nor are they required by oil companies. The blends, including different ones used at different times of the year and in different geographic areas, are forced on Americans by environmental regulations. Among other things, the regulations force refiners to incur greater costs in switching from the production of one blend to another. They also force refiners to produce a more costly "summer blend," which is partially responsible for the current rise in price.
The situation is worst in California, where environmental regulations are strictest. For example, California was one of only three states to require the removal of the octane booster MTBE in January 2004. This reduced the gasoline supply by almost 10 percent...... It's no accident that gas in California is generally 30 to 40 cents above the national average.
From drilling to refining to distribution, environmentalists have done everything they can to raise the price of gasoline. The above raises a question: Why do environmental regulations exist?
One might think they exist to protect consumers, but the evidence doesn't show this. For instance, MTBE was banned based on claims that it causes cancer. However, it has never been shown to be a danger to humans in the amounts to which they might be exposed. Claims that it "causes cancer" are based on experiments in which mice were fed doses almost 70,000 times larger than to what humans might be exposed. No scientist worthy of the title would make claims based on that kind of extrapolation.
Environmentalists are not actually concerned with the well-being of man. Their real motive is to sacrifice man to nature by stopping industrial activity. This is what they explicitly state. For instance, Adam Kolton of the Alaska Wilderness League states, "Drilling the wildest place in America is objectionable no matter how it's packaged." David M. Graber, a research biologist with the National Park Service, states, "We are not interested in the utility of a particular species, or free-flowing river, or ecosystem, to mankind. They have ... more value - to me - than another human body, or a billion of them." "
More here
THE HORMONE SCARE
In her new book The Truth about Hormones, published this week, Parry seeks to provide some 'perspective and sanity' on the discussion about hormones. We know that both natural and manmade chemicals with hormone-like actions are ubiquitous. They are in the water we drink, the air we breathe, the food we eat and 'in the very fabric of our daily lives, in cosmetics, plastics and household chemicals'. These endocrine disruptors - or 'gender benders' as they are commonly called - can block or disrupt the actions of human hormones.
This may sound scary, but as Parry tells me, 'every mouthful of food that we have has some "endocrine disrupting" activity - without harm. Our bodies are evolved to have a large amount of "endocrine disruption" going on'. She explains that plant foods contain at least 12,000 chemicals - produced for structural, attractant, chemoprotective and hormonal purposes. Cabbage contains 49 natural pesticides. Although eating cabbage may inhibit the action of oestrogen, Parry says 'such food has been part of the human diet for centuries and common sense suggests that we need not fear them'.
Some chemicals with oestrogen activity, such as phthalates, were banned in Europe in 2004. However this chemical is 'five orders of magnitude [100,000] times less potent than the oestrogen in your own body, and a hundredfold less potent than the phytoestrogens found in food which you eat all the time'. Parry says: 'We worry about the tiniest levels of hormones, believing they may cause major threat - when we have got walloping levels of hormones onboard internally. It doesn't make sense.'
She finds it rather curious that some natural hormone disruptors are viewed as good while synthetic chemical disruptors are viewed as bad - especially given that 'the [scientific] work that has been done shows that natural and synthetic chemicals turn on exactly the same genes'.
Synthetic chemicals are blamed for everything from the falling age of puberty and declining sperm counts to increasing rates of testicular and breast cancers. But take the age of puberty: falling from around 17 years of age in the mid-nineteenth century to around 11 years of age today. This may seem 'unnatural' to us - that 11-year-old girls are developing breasts, for instance. But as Parry says, 'part of the reason for this is simply that we are better fed and are healthier. It is curious thing, isn't it? People want to say that chemicals are all terrible and horrible, and we are all going to hell in a handcart, but at the same time we are living longer than ever before - which is kind of an inconvenient fact.'.....
And surely there cannot be a biological explanation for the expansion of adolescence in Western societies? Parry recognises this. 'My parents' generation was pretty much out of the nest and working at 16', she says. 'If I get mine out of the nest [she has two adolescent boys] by 25 I'll be lucky - and that's probably how most parents feel. That's partly because of a cultural shift. We want them to stay in education longer - recognising they need this period of adjustment and experimentation at being an adult.'
More here
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
MORE GREENIE-CAUSED DEATHS
"An explosion last week at a British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas refinery in Texas killed fifteen workers and injured seventy others, five critically. As usual, myopic media accounts blamed BP and its allegedly unsafe work conditions – and called for more intense government regulation and fines. Not even BP was willing to assign proper blame for the accident. According to one media account:
Why is this account myopic? It focuses on penultimate causes and ignores the ultimate cause. It is equivalent to those outrageous PBS-style documentaries which appeared after September 11th – the ones that claimed the World Trade Center towers fell due to faulty construction and safety features.
The alleged “solution” to the Texas blast, according to industry critics, is still more regulation, even though regulation was the ultimate cause of the accident (and many others that have occurred in the industry). Fact: not a single new oil and gas refinery has been built in the U.S. since 1976; the last one built was in Garyville, Louisiana that year. Worse, today there are 54% fewer oil and gas refineries in the U.S. (149) than there were in 1981 (321). Why? Not only have environmentalists lobbied government to block new refinery construction; they’ve also lobbied to have refineries decommissioned. Moreover, environmental regulations have materially raised the cost of operating refineries, making many of them unprofitable. It has been estimated that today it would take seven years, 800 permits and $2.5 billion to build a new refinery; nearly half of that cost is due entirely to the arbitrary and unnecessary costs imposed by environmentalists and their obstructionism. The National Petrochemical and Refiners Association reports that environmentalist-related costs have totaled $47 billion over the past decade; that’s enough to have built 19 new refineries (even at today’s bloated cost of $2.5 billion per unit), or 13% more refineries than exist in the U.S. today. ......
How do these facts relate to accidents, deaths and injuries at refineries? A steadily-declining number of refineries, coupled with an ever-growing demand for the products of refineries, means companies must push their plants to the limit; many today operate at 95% of capacity, well above the norm for industry in general. That leaves little time for the maintenance, repair or upgrade of existing plants. This necessarily leads, in turn, to less-safe equipment and less-safe operations. Obviously, more regulation and more fines cannot possibly solve this problem. They caused it. The restraint we need today is not restraint on oil companies (let alone more restraint); that approach has been tried – and it’s been both deadly and economically costly. What we need is restraint on the destructive environmentalists and their lap-dogs at the EPA. If lawsuits are to be filed and fines imposed, let them be filed and imposed on the real enemies of production and safety: the environmentalists.
More here
The hot air convention: Kyoto
"The latest ceremony of signing the Kyoto Protocol at the UN, and the taking of yet another opportunity to attack the US (and Australia) for not signing it too, was a pretty limp affair. Some of the UN officials, such as Kofi Annan and the High Commissioner for Refugees, seem to have had more important personal matters on their minds.
The missing chairs at the ceremony included those of the developing nations, some of whom are rapidly joining the league of major polluters; but who are exempt from Kyoto. China, just getting into her stride as a leading world manufacturing power, already equals Europe as a polluter. But there is not a word of reproof.
For one thing, she would be no more likely to accept checks on her behaviour here than in any other of her activities, and would resist - successfully - any proposals for inspection, or enforcement. Yet the China lobby in the West isn't going to speak out and risk some financial penalty from Beijing, while our Greens are being similarly circumspect.
India, without any fanfare, is expanding at a remarkable rate. I have just seen a plan to mass-produce cars in India for $6,000 a car, then later, for $2,500 a car - which should prepare us for some really hard-core pollution.
But Kyoto wasn't supposed to be about seriously tackling pollution worldwide. It was about attacking the United States, while the Left could attack capitalism. Not industrialism, or the car industry, or urbanisation - for these vital parts of the problem are off-limits, just as are the breakneck industrialisation and transport plans of China, India, and possibly Brazil.
It is tragic that such momentous issues should be politicised and truncated in this way. The Greens - both opportunistic and pusillanimous - have failed the test of showing the way, or even of explaining the issues. Not that the case for global warming has been established.
As Andrew Bolt concluded (Melbourne Herald Sun, February 25), having gone through the arguments and considerations put forward in favour of there being an unmistakable, open-ended and world-wide process of global warming in train: that case has not been made out".
Source
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
"An explosion last week at a British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas refinery in Texas killed fifteen workers and injured seventy others, five critically. As usual, myopic media accounts blamed BP and its allegedly unsafe work conditions – and called for more intense government regulation and fines. Not even BP was willing to assign proper blame for the accident. According to one media account:
[The deadly explosion] has increased scrutiny of the safety record at BP PLC, which has been dogged by a spate of accidents . . . The British oil giant said the cause of the blast was still unknown . . . It will start an internal investigation and will cooperate with outside investigators, including U.S. workplace safety regulators. . . . The incident could lead to increased regulatory scrutiny for BP . . . The company may also face hefty liabilities in any civil suit brought by the victims, family members of dead workers or businesses affected by the blast.
Why is this account myopic? It focuses on penultimate causes and ignores the ultimate cause. It is equivalent to those outrageous PBS-style documentaries which appeared after September 11th – the ones that claimed the World Trade Center towers fell due to faulty construction and safety features.
The alleged “solution” to the Texas blast, according to industry critics, is still more regulation, even though regulation was the ultimate cause of the accident (and many others that have occurred in the industry). Fact: not a single new oil and gas refinery has been built in the U.S. since 1976; the last one built was in Garyville, Louisiana that year. Worse, today there are 54% fewer oil and gas refineries in the U.S. (149) than there were in 1981 (321). Why? Not only have environmentalists lobbied government to block new refinery construction; they’ve also lobbied to have refineries decommissioned. Moreover, environmental regulations have materially raised the cost of operating refineries, making many of them unprofitable. It has been estimated that today it would take seven years, 800 permits and $2.5 billion to build a new refinery; nearly half of that cost is due entirely to the arbitrary and unnecessary costs imposed by environmentalists and their obstructionism. The National Petrochemical and Refiners Association reports that environmentalist-related costs have totaled $47 billion over the past decade; that’s enough to have built 19 new refineries (even at today’s bloated cost of $2.5 billion per unit), or 13% more refineries than exist in the U.S. today. ......
How do these facts relate to accidents, deaths and injuries at refineries? A steadily-declining number of refineries, coupled with an ever-growing demand for the products of refineries, means companies must push their plants to the limit; many today operate at 95% of capacity, well above the norm for industry in general. That leaves little time for the maintenance, repair or upgrade of existing plants. This necessarily leads, in turn, to less-safe equipment and less-safe operations. Obviously, more regulation and more fines cannot possibly solve this problem. They caused it. The restraint we need today is not restraint on oil companies (let alone more restraint); that approach has been tried – and it’s been both deadly and economically costly. What we need is restraint on the destructive environmentalists and their lap-dogs at the EPA. If lawsuits are to be filed and fines imposed, let them be filed and imposed on the real enemies of production and safety: the environmentalists.
More here
The hot air convention: Kyoto
"The latest ceremony of signing the Kyoto Protocol at the UN, and the taking of yet another opportunity to attack the US (and Australia) for not signing it too, was a pretty limp affair. Some of the UN officials, such as Kofi Annan and the High Commissioner for Refugees, seem to have had more important personal matters on their minds.
The missing chairs at the ceremony included those of the developing nations, some of whom are rapidly joining the league of major polluters; but who are exempt from Kyoto. China, just getting into her stride as a leading world manufacturing power, already equals Europe as a polluter. But there is not a word of reproof.
For one thing, she would be no more likely to accept checks on her behaviour here than in any other of her activities, and would resist - successfully - any proposals for inspection, or enforcement. Yet the China lobby in the West isn't going to speak out and risk some financial penalty from Beijing, while our Greens are being similarly circumspect.
India, without any fanfare, is expanding at a remarkable rate. I have just seen a plan to mass-produce cars in India for $6,000 a car, then later, for $2,500 a car - which should prepare us for some really hard-core pollution.
But Kyoto wasn't supposed to be about seriously tackling pollution worldwide. It was about attacking the United States, while the Left could attack capitalism. Not industrialism, or the car industry, or urbanisation - for these vital parts of the problem are off-limits, just as are the breakneck industrialisation and transport plans of China, India, and possibly Brazil.
It is tragic that such momentous issues should be politicised and truncated in this way. The Greens - both opportunistic and pusillanimous - have failed the test of showing the way, or even of explaining the issues. Not that the case for global warming has been established.
As Andrew Bolt concluded (Melbourne Herald Sun, February 25), having gone through the arguments and considerations put forward in favour of there being an unmistakable, open-ended and world-wide process of global warming in train: that case has not been made out".
Source
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Monday, April 11, 2005
Land for Food
(Post lifted from Cafe Hayek. I couldn't be bothered writing anything on this nonsense myself seeing that the world's chronic agricultural problem is food SURPLUSES)
In an earlier post, I commented on the fear that we are overcultivating the earth, suggesting that such fears are exaggerated. Here's the way the worriers word it:
Is the World Using Up Its Resources?
One of my readers also sent in the following thoughts:
Recently newspapers carried several reports about a new United Nations study with the headline "Two-Thirds of World's Resources `Used Up'" . The report warns that humans are living beyond their means:
* More land has been claimed for agriculture in last 60 years than in the 18th and 19th centuries.
* Human water consumption has doubled in last 40 years, using 40% of all available freshwater.
* Fishing stocks are overharvested.
* Mangroves and coral reefs have been badly degraded.
This study parallels other popular books about the depletion of oil, such as Paul Robert's book The End of Oil, Kenneth Deffeyes' book Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage and David Goodstein's Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil. To solve this world resource shortage, governments and even corporations such as Duke Energy, have recently proposed a "carbon tax" or global warming tax. But are these reports true? Are resources static? Consider the following:
* In 1920 600,000 acres of land in the U.S. were covered by forests; in 1994 740,000 acres were covered by forests according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a 23% increase (see Dunn & Kinney cited below).
* The area planted in trees in the U.S. increased by 2000 percent from 1930 to 1991; Canada up 28% from 1976-1988; Western Europe up 143% from 1950 to 1991; Mediterranean Europe up 87% from 1950 to 1991; USSR up 4,540,000 hectares a year in the 1980's; Turkey up 82,000 a year in 1980's; and South Africa up 63,000 hectares a year in the 1980's (according to reliable statistics summarized in by Dunn & Kinney, cited below).
* One cubic mile of continental crust contains the following percentage of world annual demand: aluminum 1,010,563,000 tons or 5,550% of world annual demand; Iron 633,932,00 tons or 90%; magnesium 259,788,000 or 4,600%; Potash 314,000 tons or 1,290%, silica 7,463,000,000 or 7,800% (see Dunn & Kinney, p. 139 cited below). There are sufficient resources in just one cubic mile of the earth to sustain it for the foreseeable future.
* The price of oil is not based on any shortage but the amount that is extracted from the earth relative to demand (i.e., supply & demand).
* There is no shortage of water for the earth's ecology relative to the vast amount of water in the oceans and even freshwater. Much of the indigenous water in urban areas flows to the sea without being captured by the environment or humans. Even in Southern California only about 20% of water is used for the essentials of living (e.g., cooking, drinking, industry), as most of the remainder goes back into the man-made green environment of lawns, gardens, golf courses, and settlement basins (see Pincetl below).
* Fish aren't being over-harvested as much as there are no firm property rights for the fishing industry, so the resource may be exploited.
For a more balanced view of the global resource problem see TCS
Sources:
James R. Dunn, John E. Kinney, Conservative Environmentalism: Reassesing the Means, Redefining the Ends (Quorum, 1996)
Stephanie Pincetl, Water in California, Is it really scarce? U.C.L.A., unpublished.
UN: The sky is falling : "Malthusian alarmism is back in the news again, with the United Nations Environment Program claiming on Wednesday that humanity has already used up two-thirds of the world's resources. 'They're at it again. This is simply the latest in a series of doom-mongering underestimates of resources coupled with a stubborn refusal to recognize the role of human ingenuity in solving such problems,' said CEI Senior Fellow Iain Murray. Previous examples include the Club of Rome's 1970 screed The Limits to Growth and Paul Ehrlich's prediction of massive starvation, The Population Bomb."
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
(Post lifted from Cafe Hayek. I couldn't be bothered writing anything on this nonsense myself seeing that the world's chronic agricultural problem is food SURPLUSES)
In an earlier post, I commented on the fear that we are overcultivating the earth, suggesting that such fears are exaggerated. Here's the way the worriers word it:
More land was converted to agriculture since 1945 than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined.That does sound scary. It seems alarming. But I have no idea if it is or it isn't. I'm also not sure how we could know such a thing. Who gathered that data from the 1700s? I did finally find some recent data from the UN, here. According to these data, arable land and permanent land under cultivation (which appears to be equal to all land that is cropped) has risen 13% since 1961, from 1.366 billion hectares, to 1.541 billion hectares. Is that alarming? I report. You decide. You can go here and go country by country or region by region. In the US, for example, arable land has declined from 182 million hectares to 178 million hectares.
Is the World Using Up Its Resources?
One of my readers also sent in the following thoughts:
Recently newspapers carried several reports about a new United Nations study with the headline "Two-Thirds of World's Resources `Used Up'" . The report warns that humans are living beyond their means:
* More land has been claimed for agriculture in last 60 years than in the 18th and 19th centuries.
* Human water consumption has doubled in last 40 years, using 40% of all available freshwater.
* Fishing stocks are overharvested.
* Mangroves and coral reefs have been badly degraded.
This study parallels other popular books about the depletion of oil, such as Paul Robert's book The End of Oil, Kenneth Deffeyes' book Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage and David Goodstein's Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil. To solve this world resource shortage, governments and even corporations such as Duke Energy, have recently proposed a "carbon tax" or global warming tax. But are these reports true? Are resources static? Consider the following:
* In 1920 600,000 acres of land in the U.S. were covered by forests; in 1994 740,000 acres were covered by forests according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a 23% increase (see Dunn & Kinney cited below).
* The area planted in trees in the U.S. increased by 2000 percent from 1930 to 1991; Canada up 28% from 1976-1988; Western Europe up 143% from 1950 to 1991; Mediterranean Europe up 87% from 1950 to 1991; USSR up 4,540,000 hectares a year in the 1980's; Turkey up 82,000 a year in 1980's; and South Africa up 63,000 hectares a year in the 1980's (according to reliable statistics summarized in by Dunn & Kinney, cited below).
* One cubic mile of continental crust contains the following percentage of world annual demand: aluminum 1,010,563,000 tons or 5,550% of world annual demand; Iron 633,932,00 tons or 90%; magnesium 259,788,000 or 4,600%; Potash 314,000 tons or 1,290%, silica 7,463,000,000 or 7,800% (see Dunn & Kinney, p. 139 cited below). There are sufficient resources in just one cubic mile of the earth to sustain it for the foreseeable future.
* The price of oil is not based on any shortage but the amount that is extracted from the earth relative to demand (i.e., supply & demand).
* There is no shortage of water for the earth's ecology relative to the vast amount of water in the oceans and even freshwater. Much of the indigenous water in urban areas flows to the sea without being captured by the environment or humans. Even in Southern California only about 20% of water is used for the essentials of living (e.g., cooking, drinking, industry), as most of the remainder goes back into the man-made green environment of lawns, gardens, golf courses, and settlement basins (see Pincetl below).
* Fish aren't being over-harvested as much as there are no firm property rights for the fishing industry, so the resource may be exploited.
For a more balanced view of the global resource problem see TCS
Sources:
James R. Dunn, John E. Kinney, Conservative Environmentalism: Reassesing the Means, Redefining the Ends (Quorum, 1996)
Stephanie Pincetl, Water in California, Is it really scarce? U.C.L.A., unpublished.
UN: The sky is falling : "Malthusian alarmism is back in the news again, with the United Nations Environment Program claiming on Wednesday that humanity has already used up two-thirds of the world's resources. 'They're at it again. This is simply the latest in a series of doom-mongering underestimates of resources coupled with a stubborn refusal to recognize the role of human ingenuity in solving such problems,' said CEI Senior Fellow Iain Murray. Previous examples include the Club of Rome's 1970 screed The Limits to Growth and Paul Ehrlich's prediction of massive starvation, The Population Bomb."
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Sunday, April 10, 2005
THE NUCLEAR DILEMMA
"Unlike the burning of fossil fuels, nuclear power does not emit carbon dioxide. Fears about global warming have raised interest in nuclear power, with the government's chief scientific adviser Sir David King recently giving support to an expansion of nuclear on the basis that it is 'carbon-free'. He called for more investment in nuclear fusion research, and said that a new generation of existing fission technologies should be an 'option'.
But while politicians are comfortable talking about nuclear power as an option, they are less happy about it as a solution. Nuclear power does not fit easily into an environmental worldview. So long as global warming is understood as a morality tale about the evils of industrialisation there is little hope that it will inspire a nuclear renaissance......
The refusal to discuss nuclear power shows up the endless consultation and 'public participation' initiatives as the worthless exercises they really are. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, whose latest consultation prompted in part the most recent round of discussion, is obsessed with transparency and openness. Although more openness sounds like it could only be a good thing, in practice it leads to a devaluing of expert judgement for fear of alienating the public. Arriving at a conclusion is subordinated to a process of inclusiveness. Consultations appear to set up a self-sustaining chain reaction, with each round leading to recommendations for a further, grander round.....
It is easy to see how the nuclear industry found itself in this mess. In the 1980s and 90s the industry found that putting forward scientifically sound arguments about safety and efficiency was not sufficient to make its case, at a time when environmentalist ideas were growing. As a result of this experience NIREX shifted the focus of its research away from physics and geology toward sociology. It drew the conclusion that an expert consensus that does not carry public acceptance is practically useless, and so started to elevate inclusion over science.
Unfortunately consensus cannot be forged using the tools of inclusion - focus groups, citizen's juries or even public consultations. These forms of debate are unable to contain a real clash of ideas - unlike public political debate, they are suitable only for small-scale fudges, accommodations and adjustments. The marginalisation of science makes consensus harder still - with fewer objective facts more is left to subjective disagreement.......
The idea that nuclear power has a role to play in reducing greenhouse emissions makes sense only if we disregard the mythic dimension of the global warming discourse. Science has established that rising concentrations of greenhouse gases are likely to lead to warmer temperatures. The 'myth of global warming', however, goes beyond those facts, interpreting them through a story of man's arrogant attempts at mastery leading to a revenge of nature. There is no place for nuclear power as a hero in this myth. Rather, nuclear power is the original villain - the hi-tech, scientific, large-scale solution to economic development.
Seen in this light it is apparent that while a higher profile for global warming might give nuclear power a boost, in the end it will hold nuclear energy back. A substantial revival of nuclear power could only occur if the case was made for science and technology contributing to social progress. Without that case being made nuclear technologies will remain hedged in with restrictions, and society will be unable to realise their potential".
More here
BUT THE NYT'S KRISTOF THINKS IT'S A GOER
Amusing that one Greenie scare (the danger of global warming) could knock off another Greenie scare (the dangers of nuclear power)
If there was one thing that used to be crystal clear to any environmentalist, it was that nuclear energy was the deadliest threat this planet faced. That's why Dick Gregory pledged at a huge anti-nuke demonstration in 1979 that he would eat no solid food until all nuclear plants in the U.S. were shut down. Mr. Gregory may be getting hungry.
But it's time for the rest of us to drop that hostility to nuclear power. It's increasingly clear that the biggest environmental threat we face is actually global warming, and that leads to a corollary: nuclear energy is green. Nuclear power, in contrast with other sources, produces no greenhouse gases. So President Bush's overall environmental policy gives me the shivers, but he's right to push ahead for nuclear energy. There haven't been any successful orders for new nuclear plants since 1973, but several proposals for new plants are now moving ahead - and that's good for the world we live in. Global energy demand will rise 60 percent over the next 25 years, according to the International Energy Agency, and nuclear power is the cleanest and best bet to fill that gap.
Solar power is a disappointment, still accounting for only about one-fifth of 1 percent of the nation's electricity and costing about five times as much as other sources. Wind is promising, for its costs have fallen 80 percent, but it suffers from one big problem: wind doesn't blow all the time. It's difficult to rely upon a source that comes and goes. In contrast, nuclear energy already makes up 20 percent of America's power, not to mention 75 percent of France's.
A sensible energy plan must encourage conservation - far more than Mr. Bush's plans do - and promote things like hybrid vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells. But for now, nuclear power is the only source that doesn't contribute to global warming and that can quickly become a mainstay of the grid.
Is it safe? No, not entirely. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl demonstrated that, and there are also risks from terrorist attacks. Then again, the world now has a half-century of experience with nuclear power plants, 440 of them around the world, and they have proved safer so far than the alternatives. America's biggest power source is now coal, which kills about 25,000 people a year through soot in the air. To put it another way, nuclear energy seems much safer than our dependency on coal, which kills more than 60 people every day. Moreover, nuclear technology has become far safer over the years. The future may belong to pebble-bed reactors, a new design that promises to be both highly efficient and incapable of a meltdown.
Radioactive wastes are a challenge. But burdening future generations with nuclear wastes in deep shafts is probably more reasonable than burdening them with a warmer world in which Manhattan is submerged under 20 feet of water......
More here
Dispelling the myths about nuclear power: "The benefits of nuclear energy are real, while the risks are mostly hypothetical. When decisions are made concerning future sources of electric power in the United States, facts, not fear, should be the basis for appraising the nuclear industry's place in the mix, says Larry Foulke, the immediate past president of the American Nuclear Society, and H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis. The events at Three Mile Island (TMI) were serious. However, rather than proving nuclear power plants are inordinately dangerous, TMI showed that redundant safety measures built into the reactor worked, say Foulke and Burnett ..."
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
"Unlike the burning of fossil fuels, nuclear power does not emit carbon dioxide. Fears about global warming have raised interest in nuclear power, with the government's chief scientific adviser Sir David King recently giving support to an expansion of nuclear on the basis that it is 'carbon-free'. He called for more investment in nuclear fusion research, and said that a new generation of existing fission technologies should be an 'option'.
But while politicians are comfortable talking about nuclear power as an option, they are less happy about it as a solution. Nuclear power does not fit easily into an environmental worldview. So long as global warming is understood as a morality tale about the evils of industrialisation there is little hope that it will inspire a nuclear renaissance......
The refusal to discuss nuclear power shows up the endless consultation and 'public participation' initiatives as the worthless exercises they really are. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, whose latest consultation prompted in part the most recent round of discussion, is obsessed with transparency and openness. Although more openness sounds like it could only be a good thing, in practice it leads to a devaluing of expert judgement for fear of alienating the public. Arriving at a conclusion is subordinated to a process of inclusiveness. Consultations appear to set up a self-sustaining chain reaction, with each round leading to recommendations for a further, grander round.....
It is easy to see how the nuclear industry found itself in this mess. In the 1980s and 90s the industry found that putting forward scientifically sound arguments about safety and efficiency was not sufficient to make its case, at a time when environmentalist ideas were growing. As a result of this experience NIREX shifted the focus of its research away from physics and geology toward sociology. It drew the conclusion that an expert consensus that does not carry public acceptance is practically useless, and so started to elevate inclusion over science.
Unfortunately consensus cannot be forged using the tools of inclusion - focus groups, citizen's juries or even public consultations. These forms of debate are unable to contain a real clash of ideas - unlike public political debate, they are suitable only for small-scale fudges, accommodations and adjustments. The marginalisation of science makes consensus harder still - with fewer objective facts more is left to subjective disagreement.......
The idea that nuclear power has a role to play in reducing greenhouse emissions makes sense only if we disregard the mythic dimension of the global warming discourse. Science has established that rising concentrations of greenhouse gases are likely to lead to warmer temperatures. The 'myth of global warming', however, goes beyond those facts, interpreting them through a story of man's arrogant attempts at mastery leading to a revenge of nature. There is no place for nuclear power as a hero in this myth. Rather, nuclear power is the original villain - the hi-tech, scientific, large-scale solution to economic development.
Seen in this light it is apparent that while a higher profile for global warming might give nuclear power a boost, in the end it will hold nuclear energy back. A substantial revival of nuclear power could only occur if the case was made for science and technology contributing to social progress. Without that case being made nuclear technologies will remain hedged in with restrictions, and society will be unable to realise their potential".
More here
BUT THE NYT'S KRISTOF THINKS IT'S A GOER
Amusing that one Greenie scare (the danger of global warming) could knock off another Greenie scare (the dangers of nuclear power)
If there was one thing that used to be crystal clear to any environmentalist, it was that nuclear energy was the deadliest threat this planet faced. That's why Dick Gregory pledged at a huge anti-nuke demonstration in 1979 that he would eat no solid food until all nuclear plants in the U.S. were shut down. Mr. Gregory may be getting hungry.
But it's time for the rest of us to drop that hostility to nuclear power. It's increasingly clear that the biggest environmental threat we face is actually global warming, and that leads to a corollary: nuclear energy is green. Nuclear power, in contrast with other sources, produces no greenhouse gases. So President Bush's overall environmental policy gives me the shivers, but he's right to push ahead for nuclear energy. There haven't been any successful orders for new nuclear plants since 1973, but several proposals for new plants are now moving ahead - and that's good for the world we live in. Global energy demand will rise 60 percent over the next 25 years, according to the International Energy Agency, and nuclear power is the cleanest and best bet to fill that gap.
Solar power is a disappointment, still accounting for only about one-fifth of 1 percent of the nation's electricity and costing about five times as much as other sources. Wind is promising, for its costs have fallen 80 percent, but it suffers from one big problem: wind doesn't blow all the time. It's difficult to rely upon a source that comes and goes. In contrast, nuclear energy already makes up 20 percent of America's power, not to mention 75 percent of France's.
A sensible energy plan must encourage conservation - far more than Mr. Bush's plans do - and promote things like hybrid vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells. But for now, nuclear power is the only source that doesn't contribute to global warming and that can quickly become a mainstay of the grid.
Is it safe? No, not entirely. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl demonstrated that, and there are also risks from terrorist attacks. Then again, the world now has a half-century of experience with nuclear power plants, 440 of them around the world, and they have proved safer so far than the alternatives. America's biggest power source is now coal, which kills about 25,000 people a year through soot in the air. To put it another way, nuclear energy seems much safer than our dependency on coal, which kills more than 60 people every day. Moreover, nuclear technology has become far safer over the years. The future may belong to pebble-bed reactors, a new design that promises to be both highly efficient and incapable of a meltdown.
Radioactive wastes are a challenge. But burdening future generations with nuclear wastes in deep shafts is probably more reasonable than burdening them with a warmer world in which Manhattan is submerged under 20 feet of water......
More here
Dispelling the myths about nuclear power: "The benefits of nuclear energy are real, while the risks are mostly hypothetical. When decisions are made concerning future sources of electric power in the United States, facts, not fear, should be the basis for appraising the nuclear industry's place in the mix, says Larry Foulke, the immediate past president of the American Nuclear Society, and H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis. The events at Three Mile Island (TMI) were serious. However, rather than proving nuclear power plants are inordinately dangerous, TMI showed that redundant safety measures built into the reactor worked, say Foulke and Burnett ..."
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Erk! Blogger.com have got their new "Recover post" feature up again. That was what caused all the service outages. It works with cookies and I had to clear all my cookies just to get on to post this. I tried to fix the typos in the post below but it would not let me -- so the chances of this going up are not good. Here's hoping!
HOW THE GREEN/LEFT LOVE AD HOMINEM ARGUMENTS!
Its all they've got
"Ad hominem" arguments say that something is true or false because of the person who said it. So if Hitler said vergetarianism makes you healthier (which he in fact did say) then that proves that vegetarianiism does not make you healthier. Such arguments constitute one of the famous "informal fallacies" of elementary logic and are of no intellectual worth whatever. For an argument to be of any scholarly merit it has to look at the evidence for or against the propostion, not at who put forward the proposition. So note in the article below how often an oil company (oil companies are only a tiny step below Hitler for Leftists) is associated with the anti-Kyoto argument. An oil company is in fact the very first thing mentioned. And also note that no mention is made of any ulterior motive that pro-Kyoto spokesmen might have (such as the need for government research grants).
And note the contrast in that the pro-Kyoto conference is described as sponsored by "U.S. philanthropic foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts" -- without mentioning how Left-leaning that organization is!.
But perhaps most amusing is that the headline claims that the anti-Kyoto group are arguing against "facts" -- and then, although the article is a long one, it proceeds to give not a single one of such "facts"! All it reports are assertions. I have marked the "ad hominem" bits in red.
WHO WANTS W.H.O.?
Paul Volcker's report last week on the oil-for-food scandal uncovered shocking incompetence and venality at the United Nations. But if Congress really wants to reform the agency, the place to start is the World Health Organization (WHO), which, in the latest absurdity, has embarked on a campaign to drive baby formula underground -- and, eventually, off the face of the earth. The big losers if the WHO is successful will, of course, be the world's poor -- the same victims of WHO blunders in fighting HIV/AIDS and malaria.
With AIDS, the WHO got a black eye for placing 18 Indian-made ripoff medicines on its list of approved drugs. Those medicines turned out to be uncertified copies of the patented HIV drugs from which they were copied. With malaria, the WHO has refused to encourage the use of DDT and other proven insecticides and has engaged in what a group of scientists, writing in The Lancet, called "medical malpractice" in its use of a poor regime of anti-malarial drugs.
A U.N. agency that was set up in 1948, the WHO, more and more, has come under the influence of radical health and environmental activists, who push a bitterly anti-enterprise ideology. Congress should insist that the WHO stick to the basics. Instead, having botched campaigns against the two worst epidemics in the world, the WHO, incredibly, is focusing its attention on the bottle-feeding of infants.
You probably remember the infant-formula imbroglio -- a real blast from the left-wing past. Promoters of breast-feeding managed to smear the use of healthy formula to nourish babies and discourage marketing of bottle-feeding products. Now, breasts are back.
In January, the WHO recommended the adoption of an extreme anti-bottle-feeding resolution at the 57th World Health Assembly -- the WHO's annual meeting, set for mid-May in Geneva. The immediate objective of the resolution is to force infant-formula packages to carry warning labels akin to those on cigarettes or liquor. The ultimate goal is to scare mothers into abandoning bottle-feeding.
There's a deep irony here. The WHO wants to discourage the use of baby formula, whose efficacy and safety have been established over many decades -- while at the same time, the WHO has been approving untested anti-AIDS drugs. Certainly, there is no questioning the benefits of breast-feeding. But many women lack the time or, in some cases, the health to feed their babies from their own breasts. For them, infant formula is an excellent substitute. For example, if a woman wants to pursue an active career outside the home, breast-feeding is often impractical. Infant formula provides the freedom that many women want, and deserve. Trying to make formula anathema is to thrust such women back to the Dark Ages. This question of choice for women is especially compelling in developing nations, where economies are beginning to draw females, as well as males, into the work force in key positions.
But radicals advocate a double standard for the poor -- in feeding babies as well as in HIV therapy.
More here
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Its all they've got
"Ad hominem" arguments say that something is true or false because of the person who said it. So if Hitler said vergetarianism makes you healthier (which he in fact did say) then that proves that vegetarianiism does not make you healthier. Such arguments constitute one of the famous "informal fallacies" of elementary logic and are of no intellectual worth whatever. For an argument to be of any scholarly merit it has to look at the evidence for or against the propostion, not at who put forward the proposition. So note in the article below how often an oil company (oil companies are only a tiny step below Hitler for Leftists) is associated with the anti-Kyoto argument. An oil company is in fact the very first thing mentioned. And also note that no mention is made of any ulterior motive that pro-Kyoto spokesmen might have (such as the need for government research grants).
And note the contrast in that the pro-Kyoto conference is described as sponsored by "U.S. philanthropic foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts" -- without mentioning how Left-leaning that organization is!.
But perhaps most amusing is that the headline claims that the anti-Kyoto group are arguing against "facts" -- and then, although the article is a long one, it proceeds to give not a single one of such "facts"! All it reports are assertions. I have marked the "ad hominem" bits in red.
Kyoto Sceptics Try to Debunk Global Warming Facts
"A major oil producer ExxonMobil has sponsored a seminar featuring leading Australian and global sceptics disputing the science behind the Kyoto Treaty, ahead of two important international conferences this week backing the need for substantial reductions in greenhouse emissions.
Richard Dennis, the Deputy Director of the Canberra-based think tank The Australia Institute, dismissed the ExxonMobil-sponsored seminar in Parliament House on Monday as designed ''to muddy the waters'' over climate science in the eyes of key decision makers. ''The explicit strategic objective of these companies is not to win this debate but to postpone it ... For people who want to get another 10 or 20 years benefits out of existing policy setting then the easiest way to go about that is to sound entirely rational saying that we need more precision,'' he said.
Organiser of the seminar Alan Oxley, chairman of the pro-free trade Australian APEC Study Centre at Monash University in Melbourne, described the sceptics' seminar as a ''reality check'' on last week's announcement by Australian state governments that they would bypass the national government and their own national system to regulate and trade greenhouse gas emissions. Co-sponsoring the seminar were Xstrata Coal, which operates over 30 coal mines in Australia and South Africa, and Tech Central Station (TCS), a conservative U.S. commentary website which is published and funded by the Republican aligned lobbying firm DCI Group and its clients. Oxley hosts the Asia-Pacific pages of TCS. While Oxley emphasized the importance of his seminar, other than the speakers, it only managed to attract approximately 40 participants.
Before Russia ratified the Kyoto Treaty late last year bringing it into effect this February, critics complained that it should be opposed because it excluded developing countries such as India and China. China is the world's second largest source of greenhouse gases - the main cause of global warming and the International Energy Agency in Paris predicts that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions from 2000 to 2030 in China alone will nearly equal the increase from the entire industrialised world.
Oxley is now seeking to woo developing countries as potential allies in an effort to ensure the Kyoto Treaty lapses at the end of the first implementation period in 2012. In a backgrounder for the conference Oxley argued that the treaty ''will constrain efforts of governments in the developing world to raise living standards.''
The Kyoto Treaty came into force on Feb. 16, seven years after it was agreed. The accord requires countries to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Some 141 countries, accounting for 55 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, have ratified the treaty, which pledges to cut these emissions by 5.2 percent by 2012.
But the world's top polluter - the U.S. - has not signed up to the treaty and neither has Australia. Prime Minister John Howard said the international protocol would undermine the country's industries with ''no environmental gain to Australia''. ''Were Australia to ratify, investment would go to those countries with no greenhouse restrictions,'' Howard said on the website of the Office of the Prime Minister.
The U.S. government's chief climate change negotiator, Harlan Watson dismissed the Kyoto agreement as too inflexible at the seminar. ''It's certainly not something the United States is going to be willing to go forward with, nor do we believe a number of large developing countries, including India and China (will do so)'', he told the 'Australian Financial Review' daily.
While a special fund, the Clean Development Mechanism, has been established to finance projects that reduce greenhouse emissions in developing countries, Oxley complains that ''the approval process will deter investment and the conditions on projects (controlled by donors) will make them less attractive to developing countries than either ordinary foreign investment or normal aid projects.''
The Australia Institute's Denniss dismisses this argument. ''If there is a problem with the approval process then he should identify how to simplify it. Even if his concerns are valid that doesn't mean that it's not going to work,'' he told IPS.
While many of the presenters at Oxley's conference were critical of the science underpinning the Kyoto Treaty, scientist John Zillman defended the quality of the process and the integrity of its projections which government negotiators drew upon in the formulation of the Kyoto Treaty. Zillman, who for a decade was Australia's lead negotiator to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change advising governments on climate science, describes himself as being ''on the conservative side of the IPCC consensus'' estimate. He said that he was ''not aware of any other mechanism with anything like the same pressures for objectivity. So my answer is that the IPCC assessments are the most reliable source of information on climate change that yet exists.'' Zillman also expressed his concern that in recent years the work of the IPCC had been hampered by a range of factors including some governments ''representing their political agendas as scientific argument'' and individuals identified as lead authors being co-opted to review comments that were based ''much more on ideology than science''.
On Wednesday a conference in Melbourne will hear from British scientists emphasizing the need for major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century. A third conference will be held in Sydney on Thursday and Friday with support from the major U.S. philanthropic foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts and with the involvement of environment departments from both Australia and New Zealand.
Dennis argues the ExxonMobil-sponsored seminar was designed to shield the Australian government from public criticism expected to emerge from participants at the other conferences later this week. ''The Australian government is pretty lonely in the climate change debate ... and there aren't many people who are passionately in favour of banging out more emissions into the atmosphere. So I think the government just needs a little bit of cover,'' he said. While the manager of ExxonMobil's Science, Strategy and Programs, Brian Flannery, acknowledged that the climate science demonstrates ''the existence of risk that may be serious for society and ecosystems'' he argued that the most appropriate action was to pursue further climate research ''to improve the understanding of risks.''
It is an argument that Denniss has little time for. ''Let's face it what money market trader can predict interest rates to four decimal places in fifty years time. None. Does this mean we don't employ monetary policy today? Of course not. You make decisions based on the available information,'' he said. ''Yet when it comes to something like climate change, apparently until we know what the weather is going to be like on Tuesday, Mar. 16, 2074 the climate change sceptics think it would be irrational for governments to act,'' he said."
Source
WHO WANTS W.H.O.?
Paul Volcker's report last week on the oil-for-food scandal uncovered shocking incompetence and venality at the United Nations. But if Congress really wants to reform the agency, the place to start is the World Health Organization (WHO), which, in the latest absurdity, has embarked on a campaign to drive baby formula underground -- and, eventually, off the face of the earth. The big losers if the WHO is successful will, of course, be the world's poor -- the same victims of WHO blunders in fighting HIV/AIDS and malaria.
With AIDS, the WHO got a black eye for placing 18 Indian-made ripoff medicines on its list of approved drugs. Those medicines turned out to be uncertified copies of the patented HIV drugs from which they were copied. With malaria, the WHO has refused to encourage the use of DDT and other proven insecticides and has engaged in what a group of scientists, writing in The Lancet, called "medical malpractice" in its use of a poor regime of anti-malarial drugs.
A U.N. agency that was set up in 1948, the WHO, more and more, has come under the influence of radical health and environmental activists, who push a bitterly anti-enterprise ideology. Congress should insist that the WHO stick to the basics. Instead, having botched campaigns against the two worst epidemics in the world, the WHO, incredibly, is focusing its attention on the bottle-feeding of infants.
You probably remember the infant-formula imbroglio -- a real blast from the left-wing past. Promoters of breast-feeding managed to smear the use of healthy formula to nourish babies and discourage marketing of bottle-feeding products. Now, breasts are back.
In January, the WHO recommended the adoption of an extreme anti-bottle-feeding resolution at the 57th World Health Assembly -- the WHO's annual meeting, set for mid-May in Geneva. The immediate objective of the resolution is to force infant-formula packages to carry warning labels akin to those on cigarettes or liquor. The ultimate goal is to scare mothers into abandoning bottle-feeding.
There's a deep irony here. The WHO wants to discourage the use of baby formula, whose efficacy and safety have been established over many decades -- while at the same time, the WHO has been approving untested anti-AIDS drugs. Certainly, there is no questioning the benefits of breast-feeding. But many women lack the time or, in some cases, the health to feed their babies from their own breasts. For them, infant formula is an excellent substitute. For example, if a woman wants to pursue an active career outside the home, breast-feeding is often impractical. Infant formula provides the freedom that many women want, and deserve. Trying to make formula anathema is to thrust such women back to the Dark Ages. This question of choice for women is especially compelling in developing nations, where economies are beginning to draw females, as well as males, into the work force in key positions.
But radicals advocate a double standard for the poor -- in feeding babies as well as in HIV therapy.
More here
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Friday, April 08, 2005
ELECTRICITY TO BE PARTLY BANNED
Is this a world-first? (Anything rather than build more power stations)
"Electric hot water systems will be banned in new homes under a State Government plan to relieve Queensland's beleaguered electricity network. New dwellings will have to opt for more costly but more energy efficient gas, solar or heat pump systems. Some building groups claim it could add thousands of dollars to the cost of building a new home at a time when affordability is slumping.....
Research by the Government has identified hot water as the biggest energy user in homes, responsible for 34 per cent of household electricity consumption. A series of reviews has found Energex and Ergon struggle to meet current demands and cannot cope in summer when air-conditioning use soars. The Government estimates that if 35,000 houses were built in Queensland during the next 25 years the new hot water systems would be the equivalent of taking 250,000 cars off the road or a 17 million tonne carbon reduction.....
But the Master Builders says some natural gas options cost up to twice as much in running costs over a 10-year period and gas was not widely available in areas where new homes were built. "No matter what option you choose there will be an increase in cost," Master Builders housing director Peter Osterhage said.
More here
THE LATEST U.N. "DISASTER" REPORT ACTUALLY SUGGESTS SOME SENSIBLE POLICIES
Excerpt from comments by Tim Worstall at Tech Central
So far we have a report detailing a problem, we understand what the root of the problem is, and I've still not told you what is shocking about it. It's that this UN report takes the economically sensible path to the solution. Yes, I know, almost unbelievable isn't it? Instead of taking the social route they advocate taking the private one, to my utter consternation, meaning that I may have to regard at least part of that corrupt and grubby organization as being useful.
There are four alternative routes to a solution offered, one of them described thusly:
More specifically, in Global Orchestration trade barriers are eliminated, distorting subsidies are removed, and a major emphasis is placed on eliminating poverty and hunger.
That is, that environmental degradation would be best reduced by more trade, more economic growth and less taxation and interference by Governments. It's almost as if these people have been reading Iain Murray of these pages or something, actually agreeing with the point that free market environmentalism actually works, indeed, works better than the alternatives.
A few more almost random quotes to show they way they are thinking:
....[a]wide range of opportunities exists to influence human behavior to address this challenge in the form of economic and financial instruments. Some of them establish markets; others work through the monetary and financial interests of the targeted social actors; still others affect relative prices.
Elimination of subsidies that promote excessive use of ecosystem services
Greater use of economic instruments and market-based approaches in the management of ecosystem services
Payment for ecosystem services
Mechanisms to enable consumer preferences to be expressed through markets
Now that's what I call shocking and almost unbelievable, that 1,300 scientists from 95 countries, working under the auspices of the United Nations, seem to have drunk the free market Kool-Aid. The end result of this years-long investigation is that us free market tree hugger and greenie types are actually correct in our contention that it is not the presence of markets, or the failure of markets, that leads to the devastation, it is the absence of markets. Just as we have had to, in centuries gone by, work out a system of laws that allows markets to flourish, thereby leading to the most efficient usage of resources, so now the task is to do the same for those areas of life where there are no markets. In water, pollution, fishing quotas, tropical forestry, in, in fact, all those sectors where we face the Tragedy of the Commons.
Many of us writers here at TCS have said so before, there now being a terrible temptation to say "we told you so", but I really don't think that any one of us ever believed that the United Nations would come out and say it. We now actually have a sensible framework for how to solve these problems, let's get to it, eh?
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Is this a world-first? (Anything rather than build more power stations)
"Electric hot water systems will be banned in new homes under a State Government plan to relieve Queensland's beleaguered electricity network. New dwellings will have to opt for more costly but more energy efficient gas, solar or heat pump systems. Some building groups claim it could add thousands of dollars to the cost of building a new home at a time when affordability is slumping.....
Research by the Government has identified hot water as the biggest energy user in homes, responsible for 34 per cent of household electricity consumption. A series of reviews has found Energex and Ergon struggle to meet current demands and cannot cope in summer when air-conditioning use soars. The Government estimates that if 35,000 houses were built in Queensland during the next 25 years the new hot water systems would be the equivalent of taking 250,000 cars off the road or a 17 million tonne carbon reduction.....
But the Master Builders says some natural gas options cost up to twice as much in running costs over a 10-year period and gas was not widely available in areas where new homes were built. "No matter what option you choose there will be an increase in cost," Master Builders housing director Peter Osterhage said.
More here
THE LATEST U.N. "DISASTER" REPORT ACTUALLY SUGGESTS SOME SENSIBLE POLICIES
Excerpt from comments by Tim Worstall at Tech Central
So far we have a report detailing a problem, we understand what the root of the problem is, and I've still not told you what is shocking about it. It's that this UN report takes the economically sensible path to the solution. Yes, I know, almost unbelievable isn't it? Instead of taking the social route they advocate taking the private one, to my utter consternation, meaning that I may have to regard at least part of that corrupt and grubby organization as being useful.
There are four alternative routes to a solution offered, one of them described thusly:
More specifically, in Global Orchestration trade barriers are eliminated, distorting subsidies are removed, and a major emphasis is placed on eliminating poverty and hunger.
That is, that environmental degradation would be best reduced by more trade, more economic growth and less taxation and interference by Governments. It's almost as if these people have been reading Iain Murray of these pages or something, actually agreeing with the point that free market environmentalism actually works, indeed, works better than the alternatives.
A few more almost random quotes to show they way they are thinking:
....[a]wide range of opportunities exists to influence human behavior to address this challenge in the form of economic and financial instruments. Some of them establish markets; others work through the monetary and financial interests of the targeted social actors; still others affect relative prices.
Elimination of subsidies that promote excessive use of ecosystem services
Greater use of economic instruments and market-based approaches in the management of ecosystem services
Payment for ecosystem services
Mechanisms to enable consumer preferences to be expressed through markets
Now that's what I call shocking and almost unbelievable, that 1,300 scientists from 95 countries, working under the auspices of the United Nations, seem to have drunk the free market Kool-Aid. The end result of this years-long investigation is that us free market tree hugger and greenie types are actually correct in our contention that it is not the presence of markets, or the failure of markets, that leads to the devastation, it is the absence of markets. Just as we have had to, in centuries gone by, work out a system of laws that allows markets to flourish, thereby leading to the most efficient usage of resources, so now the task is to do the same for those areas of life where there are no markets. In water, pollution, fishing quotas, tropical forestry, in, in fact, all those sectors where we face the Tragedy of the Commons.
Many of us writers here at TCS have said so before, there now being a terrible temptation to say "we told you so", but I really don't think that any one of us ever believed that the United Nations would come out and say it. We now actually have a sensible framework for how to solve these problems, let's get to it, eh?
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Thursday, April 07, 2005
ANOTHER FACTOR THE GREENIE CLIMATE "MODELS" LEFT OUT:
No day goes by without another story regarding global warming, and the latest news has scientists throughout the world scratching their heads about climate change. A team of scientists reports in the prestigious journal Science that dandruff levels in the atmosphere are surprisingly high, and the load of biological aerosols from flaking skin, fur, and pollen can make up between 25% and 80% of the aerosols in the atmosphere. These aerosols are important building blocks for clouds, and clouds remain the greatest mystery in the global warming debate. If our future has more high clouds, any greenhouse warming will be amplified, but if our future has more low clouds, their ability to reflect away solar radiation will dampen any warming caused by elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases. Clouds are widely recognized to be the wild cards in the greenhouse debate, and at present, clouds are notoriously poorly represented in numerical models of climate. The latest news about dandruff has implications for future clouds, and the results from the German team mean more uncertainty in predicting the future climate.
In 1990, concern over global warming prompted the United Nations to publish its first major scientific assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Almost all of that assessment dealt with the climate impact of elevated atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Only two years later, the IPCC released an amended report that included the effects of sulfate aerosols, which come from fossil fuel burning, and once in the atmosphere, reflect sunlight, brighten clouds, and make clouds last longer. Sulfates have a cooling effect that must be considered in predicting future temperatures of the Earth. By 1995, the IPCC scientific assessment was expanded to include the global and regional climatic effects of various greenhouse gases, stratospheric ozone, tropospheric ozone, sulfate aerosols, fossil fuel soot, biomass burning, mineral aerosols, and variations in solar output. The IPCC scientists added black carbon, organic carbon, jet contrails, and land-use changes to the list in 2000. This all lead Dr. James Hansen, a prominent greenhouse scientist with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, to write in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences "The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate changes."
The global warming scientific debate at times seems to be a squabble regarding how quickly the Earth is warming (or if it is warming at all), where the warming is occurring, the time of year of any warming, whether the warming is good or bad, or most importantly, whether policy actions would have any impact on the warming. The latest report from the German scientists about dandruff, fur, and pollen is a reminder that our knowledge of controls on the climate system is far from complete, and as we see in the IPCC reports, new "forcings" of climate are added in each major assessment. Even if we had perfect temperature records of the Earth and numerical models that accurately simulated the climate system, we do not know enough about how the various "forcings" will impact the climate system over the next 50 to 100 years.
We are all itching to know what will happen to the climate system over the next century, and year after year, scientists make discoveries that further complicate predicting climate into the future.
More here
Can We Afford to Squander Our Resources Through Our Reliance on Junk Science?
Asbestos and Alar are only two of many instances where vast sums were spent on hypothetical risk while science was ignored.
In the past we used our natural resources freely. We took great pride in our ability to convert resources into products with a direct benefit to the public. We turned trees into houses, coal and iron into automobiles. Today we hear that we must stop using our economic resources. Scale back! Harvest fewer trees. Drill fewer oil wells. Use less fertilizer. Build no new power plants.
Encourage the government to buy back land it once offered to its people, even though the government already owns one third of our land base.
Clearly the future of this nation depends on the proper and wise use of all our resources. How do we distinguish between the proper use, the misuse or the failure to use our resources.
A few years back EPA caused a national panic by saying that exposure to a single fiber of asbestos would cause children to have lung cancer. Congress appropriated money to test schools, and school districts spent 200 billion dollars to rid their buildings of asbestos.
Tests before the removal showed about .0001 fibers per cubic centimeter in the air. After the removal, tests showed several hundred fibers per cubic centimeter. Now that the money is spent, the EPA tacitly admits what science panels in both England and Canada had already concluded; asbestos in buildings was not a health hazard. However the asbestos left loose after the removal may well be dangerous. Why did we spend this money in this way? One answer is that we practice bad science when it comes to risk assessment, and too much public policy is made by headlines.
We may well squander ten times that amount on technically unsupportable global warming assumptions being pressed upon us by a scientific community receiving $4 billion a year to prove the unprovable, the United Nations wishing to expand its power, big business desiring to drive small business out of business, foreign nations desiring to shackle our economy, environmental zealots wishing to undermine our capitalistic economy and a co-conspiring news media which thrives on all manufactured crisis.
The management of all our resources-- natural, financial, human -- must be undertaken with an understanding that they are limited, and our decision to spend them must be better researched and better understood. Money already spent on asbestos removal can not be spent on new classrooms.
The dilemma we face does not arise from any lack of understanding of industry. The nation's attention is being diverted from concerns of research, management and production. When we do discuss expanded production of any kind, we hear immediately from a vocal minority who oppose any economic growth, especially if it is anywhere near their backyard.
Obviously some things should not be built, but in our personal experience we can think of few cases when a proposed factory, generating plant, waste facility, commercial complex, housing development, road or recreational facility has not produced a visible, sophisticated, and often effective opposition.
We also see farmers and farming coming under attack from some of these same elements -- whether it is a demand for the unlimited preservation or wetlands, the banning of pesticides and fertilizers, creeping residential development bringing regulations against dust and noise, or the animal rights movement. Any farmer who is paying attention has a right to be concerned; but his concern had better lead to some action.
We are not against wetlands or in favor of dust and noise. We believe in the regulation or our natural resources. We don't think anyone has the right to spray poison anywhere he likes, and we acknowledge the need for community involvement. What we are concerned about, however, is how in this climate of the politicization of trivia, we make decisions about our resources. How do we conduct the debate that leads to public policy and law? The answer we fear is "not very well."
We talked about asbestos and the EPA. Let us use an older example, one we all know: the controversy over Alar which led to its removal from the market. Alar was not initially banned by the government. It was not found by any scientific body conclusively to be harmful. And yet it was forced off the market by a well organized well financed scare campaign which cost apple growers and others millions of dollars. This happened at the sad beginning of our now flawed political process which says "the focused concerns of a minority will always prevail over the unfocused concerns of the majority." Well organized, well financed groups with a focused agenda are able to use the media to scare the wits out of an uninformed public, most of whom learn their science from television's talking heads.
Asbestos and Alar are only two of many instances where vast sums were spent on hypothetical risk while science was ignored. More and more public policy is decided this way. The scare and reaction method has become a staple of fund raising and a primary element of decision making in this country.
This is how the public learns of hazards of pesticides. Where does it learn about insect-borne diseases which are prevented or the food that is saved from pests to feed millions of people? Any cause that involves moral righteousness and impending disaster can be used to raise large sums of money. Saving almost anything -- rain forests, seals or an endangered species -- is very effective in raising money.
Many advocacy groups now have multi-million dollar annual budgets and beautiful new headquarters in New York, Washington and San Francisco. Last year the top 12 environmental groups alone took in $2 Billion in revenue.......
The politics of trivia are not cheap; morally righteous disputes sap our energy. Washing oil-soaked birds, scrubbing rocks and curb side recycling may make us feel better, but is it worthwhile? Saving the world from Radon, Asbestos, arsenic, ozone and CO2 is great for raising funds, but what is the real cost to the nation's industry? Wetlands, wilderness and unobstructed views are vital to us all, but where, how much and at what cost?
If we are to solve our dilemma, we must address each of its dimensions: misinformation, government by unelected special interests. a willingness to ignore science, and the myth that the imagined needs of raw nature stand as equals to the needs of mankind. Only then will we assure that the dilemma, the loss of economic strength, will not prevent us from using our resources to insure survival of our democratic society, and America's leadership in the world.
More here
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
No day goes by without another story regarding global warming, and the latest news has scientists throughout the world scratching their heads about climate change. A team of scientists reports in the prestigious journal Science that dandruff levels in the atmosphere are surprisingly high, and the load of biological aerosols from flaking skin, fur, and pollen can make up between 25% and 80% of the aerosols in the atmosphere. These aerosols are important building blocks for clouds, and clouds remain the greatest mystery in the global warming debate. If our future has more high clouds, any greenhouse warming will be amplified, but if our future has more low clouds, their ability to reflect away solar radiation will dampen any warming caused by elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases. Clouds are widely recognized to be the wild cards in the greenhouse debate, and at present, clouds are notoriously poorly represented in numerical models of climate. The latest news about dandruff has implications for future clouds, and the results from the German team mean more uncertainty in predicting the future climate.
In 1990, concern over global warming prompted the United Nations to publish its first major scientific assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Almost all of that assessment dealt with the climate impact of elevated atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Only two years later, the IPCC released an amended report that included the effects of sulfate aerosols, which come from fossil fuel burning, and once in the atmosphere, reflect sunlight, brighten clouds, and make clouds last longer. Sulfates have a cooling effect that must be considered in predicting future temperatures of the Earth. By 1995, the IPCC scientific assessment was expanded to include the global and regional climatic effects of various greenhouse gases, stratospheric ozone, tropospheric ozone, sulfate aerosols, fossil fuel soot, biomass burning, mineral aerosols, and variations in solar output. The IPCC scientists added black carbon, organic carbon, jet contrails, and land-use changes to the list in 2000. This all lead Dr. James Hansen, a prominent greenhouse scientist with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, to write in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences "The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate changes."
The global warming scientific debate at times seems to be a squabble regarding how quickly the Earth is warming (or if it is warming at all), where the warming is occurring, the time of year of any warming, whether the warming is good or bad, or most importantly, whether policy actions would have any impact on the warming. The latest report from the German scientists about dandruff, fur, and pollen is a reminder that our knowledge of controls on the climate system is far from complete, and as we see in the IPCC reports, new "forcings" of climate are added in each major assessment. Even if we had perfect temperature records of the Earth and numerical models that accurately simulated the climate system, we do not know enough about how the various "forcings" will impact the climate system over the next 50 to 100 years.
We are all itching to know what will happen to the climate system over the next century, and year after year, scientists make discoveries that further complicate predicting climate into the future.
More here
Can We Afford to Squander Our Resources Through Our Reliance on Junk Science?
Asbestos and Alar are only two of many instances where vast sums were spent on hypothetical risk while science was ignored.
In the past we used our natural resources freely. We took great pride in our ability to convert resources into products with a direct benefit to the public. We turned trees into houses, coal and iron into automobiles. Today we hear that we must stop using our economic resources. Scale back! Harvest fewer trees. Drill fewer oil wells. Use less fertilizer. Build no new power plants.
Encourage the government to buy back land it once offered to its people, even though the government already owns one third of our land base.
Clearly the future of this nation depends on the proper and wise use of all our resources. How do we distinguish between the proper use, the misuse or the failure to use our resources.
A few years back EPA caused a national panic by saying that exposure to a single fiber of asbestos would cause children to have lung cancer. Congress appropriated money to test schools, and school districts spent 200 billion dollars to rid their buildings of asbestos.
Tests before the removal showed about .0001 fibers per cubic centimeter in the air. After the removal, tests showed several hundred fibers per cubic centimeter. Now that the money is spent, the EPA tacitly admits what science panels in both England and Canada had already concluded; asbestos in buildings was not a health hazard. However the asbestos left loose after the removal may well be dangerous. Why did we spend this money in this way? One answer is that we practice bad science when it comes to risk assessment, and too much public policy is made by headlines.
We may well squander ten times that amount on technically unsupportable global warming assumptions being pressed upon us by a scientific community receiving $4 billion a year to prove the unprovable, the United Nations wishing to expand its power, big business desiring to drive small business out of business, foreign nations desiring to shackle our economy, environmental zealots wishing to undermine our capitalistic economy and a co-conspiring news media which thrives on all manufactured crisis.
The management of all our resources-- natural, financial, human -- must be undertaken with an understanding that they are limited, and our decision to spend them must be better researched and better understood. Money already spent on asbestos removal can not be spent on new classrooms.
The dilemma we face does not arise from any lack of understanding of industry. The nation's attention is being diverted from concerns of research, management and production. When we do discuss expanded production of any kind, we hear immediately from a vocal minority who oppose any economic growth, especially if it is anywhere near their backyard.
Obviously some things should not be built, but in our personal experience we can think of few cases when a proposed factory, generating plant, waste facility, commercial complex, housing development, road or recreational facility has not produced a visible, sophisticated, and often effective opposition.
We also see farmers and farming coming under attack from some of these same elements -- whether it is a demand for the unlimited preservation or wetlands, the banning of pesticides and fertilizers, creeping residential development bringing regulations against dust and noise, or the animal rights movement. Any farmer who is paying attention has a right to be concerned; but his concern had better lead to some action.
We are not against wetlands or in favor of dust and noise. We believe in the regulation or our natural resources. We don't think anyone has the right to spray poison anywhere he likes, and we acknowledge the need for community involvement. What we are concerned about, however, is how in this climate of the politicization of trivia, we make decisions about our resources. How do we conduct the debate that leads to public policy and law? The answer we fear is "not very well."
We talked about asbestos and the EPA. Let us use an older example, one we all know: the controversy over Alar which led to its removal from the market. Alar was not initially banned by the government. It was not found by any scientific body conclusively to be harmful. And yet it was forced off the market by a well organized well financed scare campaign which cost apple growers and others millions of dollars. This happened at the sad beginning of our now flawed political process which says "the focused concerns of a minority will always prevail over the unfocused concerns of the majority." Well organized, well financed groups with a focused agenda are able to use the media to scare the wits out of an uninformed public, most of whom learn their science from television's talking heads.
Asbestos and Alar are only two of many instances where vast sums were spent on hypothetical risk while science was ignored. More and more public policy is decided this way. The scare and reaction method has become a staple of fund raising and a primary element of decision making in this country.
This is how the public learns of hazards of pesticides. Where does it learn about insect-borne diseases which are prevented or the food that is saved from pests to feed millions of people? Any cause that involves moral righteousness and impending disaster can be used to raise large sums of money. Saving almost anything -- rain forests, seals or an endangered species -- is very effective in raising money.
Many advocacy groups now have multi-million dollar annual budgets and beautiful new headquarters in New York, Washington and San Francisco. Last year the top 12 environmental groups alone took in $2 Billion in revenue.......
The politics of trivia are not cheap; morally righteous disputes sap our energy. Washing oil-soaked birds, scrubbing rocks and curb side recycling may make us feel better, but is it worthwhile? Saving the world from Radon, Asbestos, arsenic, ozone and CO2 is great for raising funds, but what is the real cost to the nation's industry? Wetlands, wilderness and unobstructed views are vital to us all, but where, how much and at what cost?
If we are to solve our dilemma, we must address each of its dimensions: misinformation, government by unelected special interests. a willingness to ignore science, and the myth that the imagined needs of raw nature stand as equals to the needs of mankind. Only then will we assure that the dilemma, the loss of economic strength, will not prevent us from using our resources to insure survival of our democratic society, and America's leadership in the world.
More here
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS FLUCTUATE NATURALLY ALL THE TIME AND NOBODY KNOWS EXACTLY WHY
"A spike in the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere between 2001 and 2003 appears to be a temporary phenomenon and apparently does not indicate a quickening build-up of the gas in the atmosphere, according to an analysis by NOAA climate experts. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is released into the atmosphere by the burning of wood, coal, oil and gas. Increases in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere are of special interest to scientists because carbon dioxide is a significant heat-trapping greenhouse gas.
As measured in air samples collected from more than 60 sites in the NOAA Global Cooperative Observing Network, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increased by nearly 5 parts per million (ppm) between 2001 and 2003. The increase in 2002 was 2.43 ppm; the increase in 2003 was 2.30 ppm. In other words, more than two additional carbon-dioxide molecules were added to each million molecules of air each year during that period. [Wow! Two in a million! That's really got me worried!]. The annual increase was higher than the long-term average annual CO2 increase of approximately 1.5 ppm......
However, according to David Hofmann, director of the NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., the rate of carbon-dioxide increase returned to the long-term average level of about 1.5 ppm per year in 2004, indicating that the temporary fluctuation was probably due to changes in the natural processes that remove CO2 from the atmosphere......
Most of the variability in the year-to-year CO2 uptake is related to natural processes, including droughts and fires as well as such factors as global temperatures, rainfall amounts and volcanic eruptions.
Understanding these processes is key to forecasting annual CO2 increases, thus providing important information for future CO2 management. NOAA's Carbon Cycle Research Program, which includes surface-, ocean- and space-based measurements of CO2 and other important atmospheric gases, is aimed at developing a comprehensive picture of how CO2 is stored and released. The carbon-cycle studies are a part of NOAA's Climate Program, an integral part of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.
"Reducing scientific uncertainties of carbon sources and sinks is a priority for the Climate Change Science Program.... Atmospheric CO2 levels have increased from about 315 ppm in 1958 to 378 ppm at the end of 2004, .....[And now comes the politically correct dogmatism that totally ignores the lack of full understanding so far mentioned:] which means human activities have increased the concentration of atmospheric CO2 by 100 ppm or 36 percent."
More here
The Big Business of Climate Change Research
In the climate change debate, or more generally for any environmental issue, there exists a widespread assumption that funds provided by "big business" are used to promote falsehoods, while funds going to environmental organizations represent the grassroots will of the people. The people are like David going up against an industrial Goliath, hoping to spread truth in the face of insurmountable odds. There is little doubt that the vast majority of the citizens who donate to environmental causes view the situation in this way. But a new report released today by the Marshall Institute, a Washington-based science policy group, looks at the major donors to environmental groups for climate-related activities. It finds that the vast majority of those donors represent and promote left-leaning causes.
Historically, those causes often involve lobbying Congress to promote a specific agenda. A startling example of this is the recent report of a former officer of the Pew Charitable Trusts admitting that Pew heavily funded a number of private interests to make it look like there was a grassroots movement in favor of campaign finance reform, which was later passed by Congress.
A wide variety of charitable foundations fund organizations whose very existence depends upon environmental crises. Does anyone really believe that organizations such as Environmental Defense, Natural Resources Defense Council, and World Resources Institute would breathe a collective sigh of relief if the balance of evidence were to show that global warming was going to be relatively small, benign, and even beneficial?
I know at least two climate scientists that have received MacArthur Fellowship "genius grants", large no-strings-attached monetary awards, for their work on raising awareness of the threat posed by climate change. I wonder if there will ever be a MacArthur Fellowship for any researcher that finds evidence for a much reduced threat to humanity from human-induced climate change?
While new environmental regulations might be an annoyance for private industry, the fact is that the bulk of any new environmental-related costs to those industries are simply passed on to the public through more expensive goods and services. In contrast, spearheading environmental issues is the only reason for the existence of environmental organizations. Since all organizations have self-preservation as their number one priority, it is the environmental groups that are the most vulnerable to a loss of public interest, and thus funding. Environmental awareness is a luxury of the world's wealthiest countries, and its funding depends on (often apocalyptic) fear. An electric utility, in contrast, will continue to experience a demand for electricity (even from the homes of environmentalists) no matter what environmental regulations are passed by congress that affect that utility.
In my experience, industry is reluctant to fund environmental research in support of their views, deferring instead to the federal government to fund what is, one hopes, a balanced and impartial environmental research program. The U.S. government funds a whopping $2 billion per year in climate-related research.
While the distribution of these funds to universities and private companies might be expected to be policy-neutral, the real situation isn't quite so simple. Government agencies that disperse research funds have an infrastructure that depends upon congressional support for their existence. Their level of continued support depends upon the level of the threat perceived by the public, which then justifies the expenditure of tax dollars.
I'm not questioning the potential threat that climate change presents -- it is indeed an issue worthy of the investment. I am questioning, however, the perception that environmental organizations, and federal funding, are policy- and politically-neutral.
Someone once said, it's not a matter of who is biased (because everyone is) the real question is, which bias is the best bias to be biased with? I'm thankful that we have the freedom which allows the open exchange of ideas, and the competition between alternative philosophies and worldviews. The more money we spend on specific environmental threats, the less there is to devote to other issues. Therefore funding decisions must be based upon well informed citizens and policymakers. But let's not be naive about unbiased motives. They simply do not exist.
Source
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
"A spike in the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere between 2001 and 2003 appears to be a temporary phenomenon and apparently does not indicate a quickening build-up of the gas in the atmosphere, according to an analysis by NOAA climate experts. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is released into the atmosphere by the burning of wood, coal, oil and gas. Increases in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere are of special interest to scientists because carbon dioxide is a significant heat-trapping greenhouse gas.
As measured in air samples collected from more than 60 sites in the NOAA Global Cooperative Observing Network, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increased by nearly 5 parts per million (ppm) between 2001 and 2003. The increase in 2002 was 2.43 ppm; the increase in 2003 was 2.30 ppm. In other words, more than two additional carbon-dioxide molecules were added to each million molecules of air each year during that period. [Wow! Two in a million! That's really got me worried!]. The annual increase was higher than the long-term average annual CO2 increase of approximately 1.5 ppm......
However, according to David Hofmann, director of the NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., the rate of carbon-dioxide increase returned to the long-term average level of about 1.5 ppm per year in 2004, indicating that the temporary fluctuation was probably due to changes in the natural processes that remove CO2 from the atmosphere......
Most of the variability in the year-to-year CO2 uptake is related to natural processes, including droughts and fires as well as such factors as global temperatures, rainfall amounts and volcanic eruptions.
Understanding these processes is key to forecasting annual CO2 increases, thus providing important information for future CO2 management. NOAA's Carbon Cycle Research Program, which includes surface-, ocean- and space-based measurements of CO2 and other important atmospheric gases, is aimed at developing a comprehensive picture of how CO2 is stored and released. The carbon-cycle studies are a part of NOAA's Climate Program, an integral part of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.
"Reducing scientific uncertainties of carbon sources and sinks is a priority for the Climate Change Science Program.... Atmospheric CO2 levels have increased from about 315 ppm in 1958 to 378 ppm at the end of 2004, .....[And now comes the politically correct dogmatism that totally ignores the lack of full understanding so far mentioned:] which means human activities have increased the concentration of atmospheric CO2 by 100 ppm or 36 percent."
More here
The Big Business of Climate Change Research
In the climate change debate, or more generally for any environmental issue, there exists a widespread assumption that funds provided by "big business" are used to promote falsehoods, while funds going to environmental organizations represent the grassroots will of the people. The people are like David going up against an industrial Goliath, hoping to spread truth in the face of insurmountable odds. There is little doubt that the vast majority of the citizens who donate to environmental causes view the situation in this way. But a new report released today by the Marshall Institute, a Washington-based science policy group, looks at the major donors to environmental groups for climate-related activities. It finds that the vast majority of those donors represent and promote left-leaning causes.
Historically, those causes often involve lobbying Congress to promote a specific agenda. A startling example of this is the recent report of a former officer of the Pew Charitable Trusts admitting that Pew heavily funded a number of private interests to make it look like there was a grassroots movement in favor of campaign finance reform, which was later passed by Congress.
A wide variety of charitable foundations fund organizations whose very existence depends upon environmental crises. Does anyone really believe that organizations such as Environmental Defense, Natural Resources Defense Council, and World Resources Institute would breathe a collective sigh of relief if the balance of evidence were to show that global warming was going to be relatively small, benign, and even beneficial?
I know at least two climate scientists that have received MacArthur Fellowship "genius grants", large no-strings-attached monetary awards, for their work on raising awareness of the threat posed by climate change. I wonder if there will ever be a MacArthur Fellowship for any researcher that finds evidence for a much reduced threat to humanity from human-induced climate change?
While new environmental regulations might be an annoyance for private industry, the fact is that the bulk of any new environmental-related costs to those industries are simply passed on to the public through more expensive goods and services. In contrast, spearheading environmental issues is the only reason for the existence of environmental organizations. Since all organizations have self-preservation as their number one priority, it is the environmental groups that are the most vulnerable to a loss of public interest, and thus funding. Environmental awareness is a luxury of the world's wealthiest countries, and its funding depends on (often apocalyptic) fear. An electric utility, in contrast, will continue to experience a demand for electricity (even from the homes of environmentalists) no matter what environmental regulations are passed by congress that affect that utility.
In my experience, industry is reluctant to fund environmental research in support of their views, deferring instead to the federal government to fund what is, one hopes, a balanced and impartial environmental research program. The U.S. government funds a whopping $2 billion per year in climate-related research.
While the distribution of these funds to universities and private companies might be expected to be policy-neutral, the real situation isn't quite so simple. Government agencies that disperse research funds have an infrastructure that depends upon congressional support for their existence. Their level of continued support depends upon the level of the threat perceived by the public, which then justifies the expenditure of tax dollars.
I'm not questioning the potential threat that climate change presents -- it is indeed an issue worthy of the investment. I am questioning, however, the perception that environmental organizations, and federal funding, are policy- and politically-neutral.
Someone once said, it's not a matter of who is biased (because everyone is) the real question is, which bias is the best bias to be biased with? I'm thankful that we have the freedom which allows the open exchange of ideas, and the competition between alternative philosophies and worldviews. The more money we spend on specific environmental threats, the less there is to devote to other issues. Therefore funding decisions must be based upon well informed citizens and policymakers. But let's not be naive about unbiased motives. They simply do not exist.
Source
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
A CALIFORNIA FIGHTBACK
A conservative legal foundation filed twin federal lawsuits Wednesday challenging federal protections for 42 species, 15 of which live only in shallow seasonal pools across much of California and in far southern Oregon. The Pacific Legal Foundation says the critical habitat designations that together cover 1.5 million acres in 42 counties drive up housing costs and taxes and harm private property rights without doing much to save species.
The suits, filed simultaneously in Fresno and Sacramento federal courts on behalf of building and agriculture associations, also challenge critical habitat designations for 27 other species, 21 of which are rare plants. The suits claim the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's designations are haphazard and impose "huge social and economic costs" on property owners. The Sacramento-based legal foundation has filed other suits challenging what it says are flawed Endangered Species Act protections for hundreds of species.
Center for Biological Diversity policy director Kieran Suckling responded that research shows species with designated critical habitat are twice as likely to recover. He accused the foundation of shopping for a conservative judge by filing similar suits in two federal courts.
The critical habitat provisions in particular have been criticized by the Bush administration and others who say changes are needed in the Endangered Species Act. The wildlife service itself has said the habitat designations often are of minimal value to protecting species. The designations guide projects that involve federal funds, but don't bar development or other environmental damage. The regulatory requirements for most private property owners are no greater than under the Endangered Species Act itself, which prohibits the killing or removal of a protected species or its habitat. But foundation attorney Reed Hopper said the designation gives the federal government "veto power over any use of that property, whether it is public or private."
More here
STOSSELL ON CRICHTON
Flak is coming because the fear Crichton is questioning is fear of global warming. And as Crichton told me, "people's feelings about the environment are very close to religion." Global warming, of course, is not a faith that brings comfort. We interviewed people who seemed almost hysterical about it. One said, "Greenland is melting!" Another warned that "places like Los Angeles and New York will be underwater!" One person went even further off -- should I say it? -- the deep end: "I'm thinking it's like the end of the world."
It's natural for people to worry because there's been so much media hype. A U.S. News & World Report cover story claimed that within 50 years, the ocean "could" be checking in at the glamorous hotels of South Beach, Fla., while Vermonters "could" get malaria and Nebraska farms "could" be abandoned because of drought.
Crichton himself used to worry about global warming. But then he spent three years researching it. He concluded it's just another foolish media-hyped scare. Many climate scientists agree with him, saying the effect of man and greenhouse gases is minor.
Many people believe the weather is already getting worse -- that the earth is experiencing bigger storms than ever before. That U.S. News & World Report cover screamed "Scary Weather." But it's not true that there are more storms today or that weather is "scarier" than it used to be. As Crichton says, "It's something that almost nobody actually goes and checks."
Sadly, he's right. When "scare stories" fit reporters' preconceptions, we rarely check with the skeptics. On the subject of global warming, reporters often listen to alarmists and don't take the trouble to survey the scientists who really know. And even if they do, it's a mere fig leaf of fairness. U.S. News, for example, buried its one skeptical voice under a shrieking headline, after paragraphs predicting disaster, and between two quotes from alarmists -- astoundingly presented as voices of reason -- dismissing dissenters.
Crichton got his medical training at Harvard, where he paid his way through college by writing thrillers. When he wrote "The Andromeda Strain," the story of an organism from outer space that threatens to wipe out mankind, Hollywood called, and his medical career was over. He's gone on to write book after book that anticipated the future. "Jurassic Park" introduced cloning before others really talked about it. "Disclosure," about a man who's sexually harassed by a female boss, also raised issues that were ahead of their time. "State of Fear" may be his biggest risk, because he's taken on environmental groups that some Americans revere with religious fervor. Crichton says, "Environmental organizations are fomenting false fears in order to promote agendas and raise money." He points out that the even the scientists who study global warming have an incentive to exaggerate the problem. If you say, "there isn't a big problem," you're less likely to get grant money.
"State of Fear" is already being attacked, he says, by activists who didn't even read his book. "We seem to be very ready to think it's all coming to an end," Crichton says. And there are consequences to that kind of thinking. It can be quite difficult to oppose new laws, however much freedom and money they will take away from you, when you believe they are the only thing that can stop major cities from being lost to a sea swollen by melting icecaps. But we're not on the way to disaster, except in the form of more laws. "State of Fear" will give you new perspective on "global warming." Then, when someone tells you "it's like the end of the world!" you can say: "Give Me a Break."
Source
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
A conservative legal foundation filed twin federal lawsuits Wednesday challenging federal protections for 42 species, 15 of which live only in shallow seasonal pools across much of California and in far southern Oregon. The Pacific Legal Foundation says the critical habitat designations that together cover 1.5 million acres in 42 counties drive up housing costs and taxes and harm private property rights without doing much to save species.
The suits, filed simultaneously in Fresno and Sacramento federal courts on behalf of building and agriculture associations, also challenge critical habitat designations for 27 other species, 21 of which are rare plants. The suits claim the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's designations are haphazard and impose "huge social and economic costs" on property owners. The Sacramento-based legal foundation has filed other suits challenging what it says are flawed Endangered Species Act protections for hundreds of species.
Center for Biological Diversity policy director Kieran Suckling responded that research shows species with designated critical habitat are twice as likely to recover. He accused the foundation of shopping for a conservative judge by filing similar suits in two federal courts.
The critical habitat provisions in particular have been criticized by the Bush administration and others who say changes are needed in the Endangered Species Act. The wildlife service itself has said the habitat designations often are of minimal value to protecting species. The designations guide projects that involve federal funds, but don't bar development or other environmental damage. The regulatory requirements for most private property owners are no greater than under the Endangered Species Act itself, which prohibits the killing or removal of a protected species or its habitat. But foundation attorney Reed Hopper said the designation gives the federal government "veto power over any use of that property, whether it is public or private."
More here
STOSSELL ON CRICHTON
Flak is coming because the fear Crichton is questioning is fear of global warming. And as Crichton told me, "people's feelings about the environment are very close to religion." Global warming, of course, is not a faith that brings comfort. We interviewed people who seemed almost hysterical about it. One said, "Greenland is melting!" Another warned that "places like Los Angeles and New York will be underwater!" One person went even further off -- should I say it? -- the deep end: "I'm thinking it's like the end of the world."
It's natural for people to worry because there's been so much media hype. A U.S. News & World Report cover story claimed that within 50 years, the ocean "could" be checking in at the glamorous hotels of South Beach, Fla., while Vermonters "could" get malaria and Nebraska farms "could" be abandoned because of drought.
Crichton himself used to worry about global warming. But then he spent three years researching it. He concluded it's just another foolish media-hyped scare. Many climate scientists agree with him, saying the effect of man and greenhouse gases is minor.
Many people believe the weather is already getting worse -- that the earth is experiencing bigger storms than ever before. That U.S. News & World Report cover screamed "Scary Weather." But it's not true that there are more storms today or that weather is "scarier" than it used to be. As Crichton says, "It's something that almost nobody actually goes and checks."
Sadly, he's right. When "scare stories" fit reporters' preconceptions, we rarely check with the skeptics. On the subject of global warming, reporters often listen to alarmists and don't take the trouble to survey the scientists who really know. And even if they do, it's a mere fig leaf of fairness. U.S. News, for example, buried its one skeptical voice under a shrieking headline, after paragraphs predicting disaster, and between two quotes from alarmists -- astoundingly presented as voices of reason -- dismissing dissenters.
Crichton got his medical training at Harvard, where he paid his way through college by writing thrillers. When he wrote "The Andromeda Strain," the story of an organism from outer space that threatens to wipe out mankind, Hollywood called, and his medical career was over. He's gone on to write book after book that anticipated the future. "Jurassic Park" introduced cloning before others really talked about it. "Disclosure," about a man who's sexually harassed by a female boss, also raised issues that were ahead of their time. "State of Fear" may be his biggest risk, because he's taken on environmental groups that some Americans revere with religious fervor. Crichton says, "Environmental organizations are fomenting false fears in order to promote agendas and raise money." He points out that the even the scientists who study global warming have an incentive to exaggerate the problem. If you say, "there isn't a big problem," you're less likely to get grant money.
"State of Fear" is already being attacked, he says, by activists who didn't even read his book. "We seem to be very ready to think it's all coming to an end," Crichton says. And there are consequences to that kind of thinking. It can be quite difficult to oppose new laws, however much freedom and money they will take away from you, when you believe they are the only thing that can stop major cities from being lost to a sea swollen by melting icecaps. But we're not on the way to disaster, except in the form of more laws. "State of Fear" will give you new perspective on "global warming." Then, when someone tells you "it's like the end of the world!" you can say: "Give Me a Break."
Source
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Monday, April 04, 2005
GREENIES VERSUS THE ENVIRONMENT AGAIN
"This is a story about a small town in New Zealand I visited over Easter, whose river is threatened by the unintended consequences of the Kyoto global warming treaty. The Waitahuna River runs through one of the prettiest and most pristine corners of the world, the green rolling hills of Otago, in the deep south of the South Island. Even after recent heavy rainfall, it is little more than a creek which flows for about 30 kilometres into a bigger river, the "mighty Clutha", but it irrigates the local sheep-and-deer farming district and marks a natural boundary between farms. Locals catch big, juicy trout in its deep waters, and in summer, social activity revolves around its willow-lined banks.
But last November, strangers from the North Island came to the Waitahuna town hall bearing pavlovas and sandwiches. The representatives of the energy company TrustPower had arrived to present their plans to "steal our river", says local deer farmer Steven Martin. "We might be simple country people, but we're not stupid." TrustPower wants to pump the headwaters of the Waitahuna River and nearby Bungtown Creek uphill out of the valley and over two ridges into a lake to feed the existing Waipori hydro-electric power scheme. Martin says the proposal makes little commercial sense, except that it is subsidised by valuable carbon credits the New Zealand Government has awarded for the project and a similar but smaller one near the North Island province of Taranaki.
Unlike Australia and the US, New Zealand has signed the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty negotiated in 1997 and ratified by 141 nations, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5 per cent by 2012 compared with 1990 levels. The treaty came into force last month, a few weeks after a European Union system of carbon trading that began on January 1.
Carbon credits or "emission units" have been called the world's newest commodity. They are a measurement of the amount of carbon dioxide a company or country is allowed to emit into the atmosphere each year under the treaty. They can be traded, and companies, such as TrustPower, can be awarded carbon credits for investing in "clean" energy projects that replace greenhouse gas-producing projects, such as those fired by coal or gas. They can then sell these credits on the world market.....
So the New Zealand Government, in an effort to meet its Kyoto target, effectively uses carbon credits to subsidise companies that invest in "clean" electricity generation schemes that would not otherwise be commercially viable. TrustPower's pumping proposals for Waitahuna and Taranaki have won it a reported 114,258 carbon credits, worth almost $2 million on today's prices....
Many residents of the sparsely populated South Island, which generates two-thirds of the nation's hydro-electricity, blame the crisis on power-greedy Aucklanders with air-conditioners. They say the solution is a nuclear power station in Auckland, not squeezing the last drop of hydro capacity out of South Island creeks. But nuclear power does not have a place in the green, nuke-free New Zealand of the Labor Prime Minister, Helen Clark.
In any case, there is no consensus that the Kyoto Protocol is anything more than an expensive feel-good exercise. When caught up in the complex game of carbon trading, it may lead to the opposite outcome to those that its framers intended.....
For New Zealanders, being ostentatiously green makes sense, as much as a marketing tool as a lifestyle choice. They have a pristine country on the edge of the world, with a small population, dwindling number of sheep and growing number of tourists who drive around in Winnebagos. But the threat to the Waitahuna River is a cautionary tale of how the best intentions can backfire. In an attempt to play the virtuous global citizen and enhance its green image New Zealand risks hurting its backyard."
More here
Duuhhh.. I read it in The Guardian...
Eugene Underground has some more derisive comments about the latest Greenie scare:
Does anyone actually read The Guardian?
A whole mess of un-tenured wannabees have signed on to a report that predicted the end of the world yet again. After their litany of meaningless statements, they propose a solution: Lots of Socialism and a planned economy. (No suprise there)
I'm really scared. I hope people will stop doing anything until all the future generations get their share of resources.
Here are some of the more idiotic points:
Is that a bad thing? How much more? One hectare? Three million? Advanced technology allows us to raise food on formerly unproductive land, feeding Billions more souls, while actually using fewer inputs. -Relax
No more yummy fish!?!?!? Somebody do something!!!! Not to worry though, "overfishing" always solves itself. People don't risk the massive investment necessary to seek fish where they are not. The remaining, clever, fishies make lots of little fishies, and everybody is happy again.
Markets and free choice will solve all the world's ills. -Not a bunch of self-anointed experts.
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
"This is a story about a small town in New Zealand I visited over Easter, whose river is threatened by the unintended consequences of the Kyoto global warming treaty. The Waitahuna River runs through one of the prettiest and most pristine corners of the world, the green rolling hills of Otago, in the deep south of the South Island. Even after recent heavy rainfall, it is little more than a creek which flows for about 30 kilometres into a bigger river, the "mighty Clutha", but it irrigates the local sheep-and-deer farming district and marks a natural boundary between farms. Locals catch big, juicy trout in its deep waters, and in summer, social activity revolves around its willow-lined banks.
But last November, strangers from the North Island came to the Waitahuna town hall bearing pavlovas and sandwiches. The representatives of the energy company TrustPower had arrived to present their plans to "steal our river", says local deer farmer Steven Martin. "We might be simple country people, but we're not stupid." TrustPower wants to pump the headwaters of the Waitahuna River and nearby Bungtown Creek uphill out of the valley and over two ridges into a lake to feed the existing Waipori hydro-electric power scheme. Martin says the proposal makes little commercial sense, except that it is subsidised by valuable carbon credits the New Zealand Government has awarded for the project and a similar but smaller one near the North Island province of Taranaki.
Unlike Australia and the US, New Zealand has signed the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty negotiated in 1997 and ratified by 141 nations, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5 per cent by 2012 compared with 1990 levels. The treaty came into force last month, a few weeks after a European Union system of carbon trading that began on January 1.
Carbon credits or "emission units" have been called the world's newest commodity. They are a measurement of the amount of carbon dioxide a company or country is allowed to emit into the atmosphere each year under the treaty. They can be traded, and companies, such as TrustPower, can be awarded carbon credits for investing in "clean" energy projects that replace greenhouse gas-producing projects, such as those fired by coal or gas. They can then sell these credits on the world market.....
So the New Zealand Government, in an effort to meet its Kyoto target, effectively uses carbon credits to subsidise companies that invest in "clean" electricity generation schemes that would not otherwise be commercially viable. TrustPower's pumping proposals for Waitahuna and Taranaki have won it a reported 114,258 carbon credits, worth almost $2 million on today's prices....
Many residents of the sparsely populated South Island, which generates two-thirds of the nation's hydro-electricity, blame the crisis on power-greedy Aucklanders with air-conditioners. They say the solution is a nuclear power station in Auckland, not squeezing the last drop of hydro capacity out of South Island creeks. But nuclear power does not have a place in the green, nuke-free New Zealand of the Labor Prime Minister, Helen Clark.
In any case, there is no consensus that the Kyoto Protocol is anything more than an expensive feel-good exercise. When caught up in the complex game of carbon trading, it may lead to the opposite outcome to those that its framers intended.....
For New Zealanders, being ostentatiously green makes sense, as much as a marketing tool as a lifestyle choice. They have a pristine country on the edge of the world, with a small population, dwindling number of sheep and growing number of tourists who drive around in Winnebagos. But the threat to the Waitahuna River is a cautionary tale of how the best intentions can backfire. In an attempt to play the virtuous global citizen and enhance its green image New Zealand risks hurting its backyard."
More here
Duuhhh.. I read it in The Guardian...
Eugene Underground has some more derisive comments about the latest Greenie scare:
Does anyone actually read The Guardian?
A whole mess of un-tenured wannabees have signed on to a report that predicted the end of the world yet again. After their litany of meaningless statements, they propose a solution: Lots of Socialism and a planned economy. (No suprise there)
I'm really scared. I hope people will stop doing anything until all the future generations get their share of resources.
Here are some of the more idiotic points:
Because of human demand for food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel, more land has been claimed for agriculture in the last 60 years than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined.
Is that a bad thing? How much more? One hectare? Three million? Advanced technology allows us to raise food on formerly unproductive land, feeding Billions more souls, while actually using fewer inputs. -Relax
Water withdrawals from lakes and rivers has doubled in the last 40 years. Humans now use between 40% and 50% of all available freshwater running off the land.
We all know that, once it is used for human purposes, "water running off the land" disappears. Poof! Annihilated! I expect all of Europe to be a lifeless desert by next year.
At least a quarter of all fish stocks are overharvested. In some areas, the
catch is now less than a hundredth of that before industrial fishing.
No more yummy fish!?!?!? Somebody do something!!!! Not to worry though, "overfishing" always solves itself. People don't risk the massive investment necessary to seek fish where they are not. The remaining, clever, fishies make lots of little fishies, and everybody is happy again.
Markets and free choice will solve all the world's ills. -Not a bunch of self-anointed experts.
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Sunday, April 03, 2005
GM TRIUMPH IN AUSTRALIA
Farmers have begun harvesting a vast crop of genetically modified cotton that has allowed them to slash the heavy use of pesticides for which they have long been been criticised. With NSW and Queensland farmers free for the first time last spring to plant as much GM cotton as they liked after nine years of caution, about 80 per cent of the 300,000 hectares sown was genetically modified to resist herbicides and fight the crop's enemy, the helicoverpa moth.
While cotton growers such as Bourke's Ian Cole would normally spray his crop up to 18 times each growing season to kill off pest insects, this season he only sprayed three times after choosing to grow a GM crop. Those three sprays were targeted to attack sucking insects such as mites and did not wipe out the "beneficials" - spiders, wasps and ladybirds - as the powerful, broad-spectrum sprays for helicoverpa used to. "I'm a big believer in technology being able to solve problems for us in agriculture," Mr Cole said. "Technology has solved a huge problem for us in cotton."
Over the years, traditional pesticides had became stronger and were applied more frequently as insects built immunity. Helicoverpa moths lay their eggs into the boll, or fruit, of the cotton plants and when the larvae hatch they eat the fruit.
GM pioneer Monsanto first won permission for Australian farmers to grow its Ingard GM cotton in 1996. Ingard contained a gene found in soil bacteria that enabled the cotton to produce a protein that killed the grubs when they ate the plant. But because there was a risk of the helicoverpa developing immunity to the single-gene product, planting of Ingard was limited to 30 per cent.
Now Monsanto has replaced Ingard with Bollgard II, which uses two genes and produces two deadly proteins. The chance of insects developing immunity to Bollgard is "extremely small", according to Mark Buckingham, a Monsanto spokesman. Ingard enabled farmers to more than halve the amount of pesticide spraying they needed to do and Bollgard requires 85 per cent less pesticide than conventional cotton.
As an ongoing safeguard, farmers planting Bollgard must also plant a "refuge crop" of pigeon pea. The theory is that any moths that do develop an immunity to Bollgard would mate with moths that have fed on the nearby pigeon pea and have not developed immunity. Their offspring would also not have immunity.
Apart from carnations, cotton is still the only GM crop allowed to be commercially grown in Australia because of strict government regulations and strident opposition from environmental and consumer groups.
Mr Cole said that as well as being great for the environment and the workplace safety of his staff, Bollgard saved farmers a lot of money because they do not have to spray as much and can devote more time to other matters such as improving water efficiency. Cotton's thirst for water is the industry's other public relations problem.
Globally, the area planted with GM crops rose 20 per cent last year to 81 million hectares - 5 per cent of the Earth's cultivated crop land. More than 8 million farmers in 17 countries planted GM crops in 2004 and 90 per cent were in developing countries. When commercial GM crops were first planted in 1996, there were 1.7 million hectares.
Source
ANOTHER COMMMENT ON THE LATEST "RUNNING OUT" SCARE
Excerpt from Cafe Hayek. See also my comment of April 1
"Look at that last item again:
That is not science. That's scare-mongering. Or wild-guessing. Or something else. But it's not science. Is that from the journalist or the report? Alas, it's more or less from the report. Here's how the press release words it:
When you read the actual press release rather than the news story, you realize that we've left the realm of science and are somewhere else. 'Could grow worse.' 'Four plausible futures.' (Only four?) And they're worried about malaria's impact on GDP? But we could have saved millions of lives from death by malaria by using DDT. But that's bad for the environment. So is that good or bad?
Look at the first two items:
Sounds scary. But why go back 60 years? Is 24% the critical number where the whole system is going to collapse? Why? Where's the evidence? I'm trying to find a reliable source on the web for what has happened since 1960. Most sources suggest that land under cultivation has risen from 1.3 billion hectares in 1960 to about 1.4 billion hectares today. (In the meanwhile, I'm searching for a reliable link.) If true, not so scary.
Water could be a problem down the road. It's a problem now around the world due to poorly run thugocracies around the world, but that's not what the report is referring to. The world's fisheries are probably mismanaged. But where's the evidence that we're standing on the edge of a precipice? There isn't any.
I plan to sleep well tonight, though I am worried about the state of science.
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Farmers have begun harvesting a vast crop of genetically modified cotton that has allowed them to slash the heavy use of pesticides for which they have long been been criticised. With NSW and Queensland farmers free for the first time last spring to plant as much GM cotton as they liked after nine years of caution, about 80 per cent of the 300,000 hectares sown was genetically modified to resist herbicides and fight the crop's enemy, the helicoverpa moth.
While cotton growers such as Bourke's Ian Cole would normally spray his crop up to 18 times each growing season to kill off pest insects, this season he only sprayed three times after choosing to grow a GM crop. Those three sprays were targeted to attack sucking insects such as mites and did not wipe out the "beneficials" - spiders, wasps and ladybirds - as the powerful, broad-spectrum sprays for helicoverpa used to. "I'm a big believer in technology being able to solve problems for us in agriculture," Mr Cole said. "Technology has solved a huge problem for us in cotton."
Over the years, traditional pesticides had became stronger and were applied more frequently as insects built immunity. Helicoverpa moths lay their eggs into the boll, or fruit, of the cotton plants and when the larvae hatch they eat the fruit.
GM pioneer Monsanto first won permission for Australian farmers to grow its Ingard GM cotton in 1996. Ingard contained a gene found in soil bacteria that enabled the cotton to produce a protein that killed the grubs when they ate the plant. But because there was a risk of the helicoverpa developing immunity to the single-gene product, planting of Ingard was limited to 30 per cent.
Now Monsanto has replaced Ingard with Bollgard II, which uses two genes and produces two deadly proteins. The chance of insects developing immunity to Bollgard is "extremely small", according to Mark Buckingham, a Monsanto spokesman. Ingard enabled farmers to more than halve the amount of pesticide spraying they needed to do and Bollgard requires 85 per cent less pesticide than conventional cotton.
As an ongoing safeguard, farmers planting Bollgard must also plant a "refuge crop" of pigeon pea. The theory is that any moths that do develop an immunity to Bollgard would mate with moths that have fed on the nearby pigeon pea and have not developed immunity. Their offspring would also not have immunity.
Apart from carnations, cotton is still the only GM crop allowed to be commercially grown in Australia because of strict government regulations and strident opposition from environmental and consumer groups.
Mr Cole said that as well as being great for the environment and the workplace safety of his staff, Bollgard saved farmers a lot of money because they do not have to spray as much and can devote more time to other matters such as improving water efficiency. Cotton's thirst for water is the industry's other public relations problem.
Globally, the area planted with GM crops rose 20 per cent last year to 81 million hectares - 5 per cent of the Earth's cultivated crop land. More than 8 million farmers in 17 countries planted GM crops in 2004 and 90 per cent were in developing countries. When commercial GM crops were first planted in 1996, there were 1.7 million hectares.
Source
ANOTHER COMMMENT ON THE LATEST "RUNNING OUT" SCARE
Excerpt from Cafe Hayek. See also my comment of April 1
"Look at that last item again:
Deforestation and other changes could increase the risks of malaria and cholera, and open the way for new and so far unknown disease to emerge.
That is not science. That's scare-mongering. Or wild-guessing. Or something else. But it's not science. Is that from the journalist or the report? Alas, it's more or less from the report. Here's how the press release words it:
The degradation of ecosystem services could grow significantly worse during the first half of this century and is a barrier to achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals. In all the four plausible futures explored by the scientists, they project progress in eliminating hunger, but at far slower rates than needed to halve number of people suffering from hunger by 2015. Experts warn that changes in ecosystems such as deforestation influence the abundance of human pathogens such as malaria and cholera, as well as the risk of emergence of new diseases. Malaria, for example, accounts for 11 percent of the disease burden in Africa and had it been eliminated 35 years ago, the continent's gross domestic product would have increased by $100 billion.
When you read the actual press release rather than the news story, you realize that we've left the realm of science and are somewhere else. 'Could grow worse.' 'Four plausible futures.' (Only four?) And they're worried about malaria's impact on GDP? But we could have saved millions of lives from death by malaria by using DDT. But that's bad for the environment. So is that good or bad?
Look at the first two items:
Because of human demand for food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel, more land has been claimed for agriculture in the last 60 years than in the 18th and 19th centuries combined.
An estimated 24% of the Earth's land surface is now cultivated.
Sounds scary. But why go back 60 years? Is 24% the critical number where the whole system is going to collapse? Why? Where's the evidence? I'm trying to find a reliable source on the web for what has happened since 1960. Most sources suggest that land under cultivation has risen from 1.3 billion hectares in 1960 to about 1.4 billion hectares today. (In the meanwhile, I'm searching for a reliable link.) If true, not so scary.
Water could be a problem down the road. It's a problem now around the world due to poorly run thugocracies around the world, but that's not what the report is referring to. The world's fisheries are probably mismanaged. But where's the evidence that we're standing on the edge of a precipice? There isn't any.
I plan to sleep well tonight, though I am worried about the state of science.
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Saturday, April 02, 2005
"SMART GROWTH" IN CALIFORNIA
Only smart for the rich and childless
Today's Times had an entertaining article called, "Priced Out of Public Service," about a Half Moon Bay councilman who is giving up his seat and moving out of town because he can't afford to live there any more -- a problem that has afflicted more than one California community. Right where the article jumps to B8, however, the reader learns that Sid McCausland is a leader of the anti-growth faction in the city's bitter politics. In his parting shot, he argued that "the pro-growthers, which includes the local paper, routinely distort every issue and twist every fact in an effort to undermine the credibility of those of us who support controlled growth." Controlled growth? Could it be that such government controls have limited the supply of new housing, thereby pushing up the prices of existing homes? Could that be why people like McCausland are being priced out of their town? Is it any wonder that the parts of the state with the toughest growth controls (the Bay Area, the Central Coast, etc.) have the highest home prices?
Here's my beef with the New Urbanism/Smart Growth: This movement typically embraces growth controls (although some New Urbanists argue for their design ideas in a market context) to help create the right aesthetic. But their policies end up creating nice-looking cities that function in a bizarre manner. Often, the New Urbanism paradises (Portland, Santa Barbara, etc.) are worlds of childless Yuppies, with costly boutiques and trendoid restaurants. They look like old-time cities, but don't function like them. Try raising a family in these places. The New Urbanists accuse suburbanites of living in soulless sprawl. They have a point about the bland, look-alike nature of much of suburbia. But they are creating a soulless urbanism, a form of urban living that is devoid of families and true diversity because -- getting back to Half Moon Bay -- the cost of entry is so high thanks to their policies that artificially inflate the cost of housing. They are creating a world where only the wealthy, and only those with the right political connections, can start businesses, build houses, live the American Dream. More on this in a forthcoming column.
Source (Post of March 29)
ANOTHER GREENIE BOONDOGGLE
Critics of the glitch-plagued Las Vegas Monorail might consider the transit line a piece of junk. Now, bonds that helped pay to build the system really are junk. About $455.8 million in bonds were dropped to "speculative" grade, or "junk" status, by Moody's Investors Service on Wednesday amid concerns over lagging ridership and revenues to date. The bonds, which covered a large chunk of the $650 million system's price tag, had been "investment" grade by the global credit ratings firm. Although the downgrade has no effect on the monorail's day-to-day operations, it's a financial black eye for a system that's suffered a string of service pratfalls in 2004. "The downgrade is our way of indicating to investors the prospects of timely payment of debt service are a little riskier now," said Anne Van Praagh, a Moody's analyst who prepared the company's monorail report.....
"The downgrade is based on the actual revenues to date being lower than the original forecast, which is due in large part to the late opening and subsequent shutdown of operations," Moody's said in its report. "The negative outlook anticipates that the system will be required to continue to achieve a significant ramp-up in ridership and revenues in order to achieve financial self-sufficiency," the report said. "While the ramp-up period ridership through the first quarter of 2005 has shown positive growth, more operating history will be needed to fully assess credit quality," Moody's said. .....
In January and February, the monorail averaged around 23,000 riders per day and roughly $66,000 in daily revenues, well below what was needed to break even. Monorail officials have said they expect over 30,000 daily riders this month. It's key that the monorail build on those numbers. Moody's noted that annual operating costs are around $21 million, almost $5 million more than originally expected. That means the monorail needs $51 million a year in advertising and farebox revenues annually to cover its day-to-day costs and pay off its bonds, Moody's said. "With $6 million in advertising revenues currently committed, the monorail would have to raise $45 million in farebox revenues" each year, said Moody's, which projects fares will bring in $34 million this year. Monorail officials expect almost $37 million. "In Moody's view, this represents a significant challenge that will depend on continued system safety and availability and the success of ongoing marketing initiatives," the report said.
More here
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Only smart for the rich and childless
Today's Times had an entertaining article called, "Priced Out of Public Service," about a Half Moon Bay councilman who is giving up his seat and moving out of town because he can't afford to live there any more -- a problem that has afflicted more than one California community. Right where the article jumps to B8, however, the reader learns that Sid McCausland is a leader of the anti-growth faction in the city's bitter politics. In his parting shot, he argued that "the pro-growthers, which includes the local paper, routinely distort every issue and twist every fact in an effort to undermine the credibility of those of us who support controlled growth." Controlled growth? Could it be that such government controls have limited the supply of new housing, thereby pushing up the prices of existing homes? Could that be why people like McCausland are being priced out of their town? Is it any wonder that the parts of the state with the toughest growth controls (the Bay Area, the Central Coast, etc.) have the highest home prices?
Here's my beef with the New Urbanism/Smart Growth: This movement typically embraces growth controls (although some New Urbanists argue for their design ideas in a market context) to help create the right aesthetic. But their policies end up creating nice-looking cities that function in a bizarre manner. Often, the New Urbanism paradises (Portland, Santa Barbara, etc.) are worlds of childless Yuppies, with costly boutiques and trendoid restaurants. They look like old-time cities, but don't function like them. Try raising a family in these places. The New Urbanists accuse suburbanites of living in soulless sprawl. They have a point about the bland, look-alike nature of much of suburbia. But they are creating a soulless urbanism, a form of urban living that is devoid of families and true diversity because -- getting back to Half Moon Bay -- the cost of entry is so high thanks to their policies that artificially inflate the cost of housing. They are creating a world where only the wealthy, and only those with the right political connections, can start businesses, build houses, live the American Dream. More on this in a forthcoming column.
Source (Post of March 29)
ANOTHER GREENIE BOONDOGGLE
Critics of the glitch-plagued Las Vegas Monorail might consider the transit line a piece of junk. Now, bonds that helped pay to build the system really are junk. About $455.8 million in bonds were dropped to "speculative" grade, or "junk" status, by Moody's Investors Service on Wednesday amid concerns over lagging ridership and revenues to date. The bonds, which covered a large chunk of the $650 million system's price tag, had been "investment" grade by the global credit ratings firm. Although the downgrade has no effect on the monorail's day-to-day operations, it's a financial black eye for a system that's suffered a string of service pratfalls in 2004. "The downgrade is our way of indicating to investors the prospects of timely payment of debt service are a little riskier now," said Anne Van Praagh, a Moody's analyst who prepared the company's monorail report.....
"The downgrade is based on the actual revenues to date being lower than the original forecast, which is due in large part to the late opening and subsequent shutdown of operations," Moody's said in its report. "The negative outlook anticipates that the system will be required to continue to achieve a significant ramp-up in ridership and revenues in order to achieve financial self-sufficiency," the report said. "While the ramp-up period ridership through the first quarter of 2005 has shown positive growth, more operating history will be needed to fully assess credit quality," Moody's said. .....
In January and February, the monorail averaged around 23,000 riders per day and roughly $66,000 in daily revenues, well below what was needed to break even. Monorail officials have said they expect over 30,000 daily riders this month. It's key that the monorail build on those numbers. Moody's noted that annual operating costs are around $21 million, almost $5 million more than originally expected. That means the monorail needs $51 million a year in advertising and farebox revenues annually to cover its day-to-day costs and pay off its bonds, Moody's said. "With $6 million in advertising revenues currently committed, the monorail would have to raise $45 million in farebox revenues" each year, said Moody's, which projects fares will bring in $34 million this year. Monorail officials expect almost $37 million. "In Moody's view, this represents a significant challenge that will depend on continued system safety and availability and the success of ongoing marketing initiatives," the report said.
More here
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Friday, April 01, 2005
ANOTHER SET OF VARIATIONS ON A PERENNIAL GREENIE THEME
You will only have to read the first sentence of the latest "news" report below to know that you have heard that sort of thing many times before. The excerpt below is from The Washington Post but a similar one also appeared in The Guardian, of course. Why do they keep repeating the same old fairy-tales? I guess they just like the publicity that the Left-leaning media give them. And I guess there are always young readers who have NOT heard it all before. For the benefit of young readers therefore, let me point out that the same sort of claims were being made 30 years ago and the predictions of doom made then have all been just about the reverse of the truth -- since that time we have got greatly better off and have even more resources than we ever did before. How do I know such claims were already common 30 years ago? Because I wrote a book over 30 years ago that included extensive debunking of such claims. See the relevant chapters here and here and here and here and here. And if anybody does not know about the bet that Julian Simon had with Paul Ehrlich, the full story is here. And note that the latest "report" is put out by what is probably the world's most corrupt organization: The United Nations -- though The Guardian does not mention that for some strange reason
"Many of the world's ecosystems are in danger and might not support future generations unless radical measures are implemented to protect and revive them, according to the most comprehensive analysis ever conducted of how the world's oceans, dry lands, forests and species interact and depend on one another. The new report collates research from many specific locales to create the first global snapshot of ecosystems. More than 1,300 authors from 95 countries participated in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, whose results are being made public today by the United Nations and by several private and public organizations. "Only by understanding the environment and how it works, can we make the necessary decisions to protect it," said U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in a statement marking the report's release. "Only by valuing all our precious natural and human resources, can we hope to build a sustainable future."
The effort brought together governments, civil society groups, industry and indigenous people over a four-year period to examine the social, economic and environmental aspects of ecosystems. The report was assembled by the U.N. Environment Program and included scientists from many universities and organizations, including the World Bank. Jonathan Lash, president of the nonprofit World Resources Institute, which helped put together the report, said it "created for the first time a set of leading ecosystem indicators."
Although food production is up, the report said, many other benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems are threatened, and some environmental changes can produce sudden, unexpected deteriorations in water quality, climate and health. "Human actions are depleting Earth's natural capital, putting such strain on the environment that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted," the authors said. The report cites widespread and growing problems such as the collapse of fisheries in some parts of the world because of over-exploitation, the creation of "dead zones" around the mouths of some rivers because of nitrogen runoff from farms, and environmental degradation in some dry-land ecosystems.......
Environmental advocates such as Nadia Martinez, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a nonprofit think tank, applauded the report's findings but said she is concerned that governments could implement its market-based recommendations while ignoring its caveats. For example, she said, imposing a cost on clean water would disproportionately affect the poor."
ASBESTOS HYSTERIA NAILED
It's only massive exposure to asbestos that has ever been shown to be harmful
El Dorado County's chief of environmental enforcement says federal officials will release unnecessarily alarming findings about baseball and other sports activity kicking up levels of naturally occurring asbestos on some local playgrounds. Among those alarmed by Jon Morgan's statements in a "special notice/press release" Tuesday were the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials who conducted the study of the El Dorado Hills playgrounds.
The EPA fired back a press release denouncing Morgan's press release. "The claims Jon Morgan makes in his press release are irresponsible, false, and display a lack of understanding of the complex nature of the challenges posed by asbestos," said Dan Meer, who supervised the EPA study. The battle of the press releases comes as the EPA and other agencies prepare to release studies assessing risks of asbestos exposure from everyday activities in foothill communities laced in places with the fibrous minerals. The EPA designed the air tests in October particularly to gauge the asbestos exposure of children at play.
Government contractors in protective jumpsuits with respirators and wearing air monitors played sports that could raise dust containing the invisible, cancer-causing fibers from native rock churned up by development. Sampling of the air and soil occurred on dirt baseball diamonds and the children's playground at the El Dorado Hills Community Center, and on sports fields at Jackson and Silva Valley elementary schools and Rolling Hills Middle School.
Morgan, who alternately has criticized and welcomed the EPA's help, said in his press release Tuesday that the soon-to-be-released test results "may unnecessarily scare the daylights out of every man, woman and child in El Dorado County. EPA lacks accountability, common sense and fails to communicate to the people of El Dorado County," Morgan said.
Meer said the results completed to date should "concern" residents but not "scare" them. Meer said EPA officials gave Morgan and other county officials a "sneak peek" at some of the preliminary test results earlier this month in preparation for their public release in late April, after the federal agency has received and validated all test results. Accurately interpreting and communicating the test results will be difficult, he said.
More here
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
You will only have to read the first sentence of the latest "news" report below to know that you have heard that sort of thing many times before. The excerpt below is from The Washington Post but a similar one also appeared in The Guardian, of course. Why do they keep repeating the same old fairy-tales? I guess they just like the publicity that the Left-leaning media give them. And I guess there are always young readers who have NOT heard it all before. For the benefit of young readers therefore, let me point out that the same sort of claims were being made 30 years ago and the predictions of doom made then have all been just about the reverse of the truth -- since that time we have got greatly better off and have even more resources than we ever did before. How do I know such claims were already common 30 years ago? Because I wrote a book over 30 years ago that included extensive debunking of such claims. See the relevant chapters here and here and here and here and here. And if anybody does not know about the bet that Julian Simon had with Paul Ehrlich, the full story is here. And note that the latest "report" is put out by what is probably the world's most corrupt organization: The United Nations -- though The Guardian does not mention that for some strange reason
"Many of the world's ecosystems are in danger and might not support future generations unless radical measures are implemented to protect and revive them, according to the most comprehensive analysis ever conducted of how the world's oceans, dry lands, forests and species interact and depend on one another. The new report collates research from many specific locales to create the first global snapshot of ecosystems. More than 1,300 authors from 95 countries participated in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, whose results are being made public today by the United Nations and by several private and public organizations. "Only by understanding the environment and how it works, can we make the necessary decisions to protect it," said U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in a statement marking the report's release. "Only by valuing all our precious natural and human resources, can we hope to build a sustainable future."
The effort brought together governments, civil society groups, industry and indigenous people over a four-year period to examine the social, economic and environmental aspects of ecosystems. The report was assembled by the U.N. Environment Program and included scientists from many universities and organizations, including the World Bank. Jonathan Lash, president of the nonprofit World Resources Institute, which helped put together the report, said it "created for the first time a set of leading ecosystem indicators."
Although food production is up, the report said, many other benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems are threatened, and some environmental changes can produce sudden, unexpected deteriorations in water quality, climate and health. "Human actions are depleting Earth's natural capital, putting such strain on the environment that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted," the authors said. The report cites widespread and growing problems such as the collapse of fisheries in some parts of the world because of over-exploitation, the creation of "dead zones" around the mouths of some rivers because of nitrogen runoff from farms, and environmental degradation in some dry-land ecosystems.......
Environmental advocates such as Nadia Martinez, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a nonprofit think tank, applauded the report's findings but said she is concerned that governments could implement its market-based recommendations while ignoring its caveats. For example, she said, imposing a cost on clean water would disproportionately affect the poor."
ASBESTOS HYSTERIA NAILED
It's only massive exposure to asbestos that has ever been shown to be harmful
El Dorado County's chief of environmental enforcement says federal officials will release unnecessarily alarming findings about baseball and other sports activity kicking up levels of naturally occurring asbestos on some local playgrounds. Among those alarmed by Jon Morgan's statements in a "special notice/press release" Tuesday were the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials who conducted the study of the El Dorado Hills playgrounds.
The EPA fired back a press release denouncing Morgan's press release. "The claims Jon Morgan makes in his press release are irresponsible, false, and display a lack of understanding of the complex nature of the challenges posed by asbestos," said Dan Meer, who supervised the EPA study. The battle of the press releases comes as the EPA and other agencies prepare to release studies assessing risks of asbestos exposure from everyday activities in foothill communities laced in places with the fibrous minerals. The EPA designed the air tests in October particularly to gauge the asbestos exposure of children at play.
Government contractors in protective jumpsuits with respirators and wearing air monitors played sports that could raise dust containing the invisible, cancer-causing fibers from native rock churned up by development. Sampling of the air and soil occurred on dirt baseball diamonds and the children's playground at the El Dorado Hills Community Center, and on sports fields at Jackson and Silva Valley elementary schools and Rolling Hills Middle School.
Morgan, who alternately has criticized and welcomed the EPA's help, said in his press release Tuesday that the soon-to-be-released test results "may unnecessarily scare the daylights out of every man, woman and child in El Dorado County. EPA lacks accountability, common sense and fails to communicate to the people of El Dorado County," Morgan said.
Meer said the results completed to date should "concern" residents but not "scare" them. Meer said EPA officials gave Morgan and other county officials a "sneak peek" at some of the preliminary test results earlier this month in preparation for their public release in late April, after the federal agency has received and validated all test results. Accurately interpreting and communicating the test results will be difficult, he said.
More here
***************************************
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.
*****************************************
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Jim Hansen and his twin
