"NATURE" GETS IT WRONG AGAIN

I am no anthropologist but, because I knew of the history of pygmies in areas in and around Northern Australia, even I suspected from the start that the newly-discovered "Hobbits" of Indonesia were not at all a new species. The article below would seem to vindicate my conclusion. So where were the referees who passed the original incautious article for publication in "Nature"? Maybe "Nature" used the same referees it uses to evaluate articles on global warming!

Fossilized remains which Australian researchers hailed as a previously unknown species of miniature human probably belonged to a disabled caveman, a new study has concluded.

The discovery by Australian and Indonesian archaeologists of a skull and bones on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004 was thought to be a major development in tracing human evolution. Nicknamed the Hobbit, the 1m skeleton was by far the smallest ever found, with a brain the size of a grapefruit.

However, a new study contends the remains probably belonged to an early human suffering from microcephaly, a condition that causes an abnormally small head and other deformities, London's Sunday Times reports. The paper quotes a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, one of America's most respected scientific institutions, as suggesting the initial evaluation of the remains was flawed. "The skeletal remains do not represent a new species, but some of the ancestors of modern human pygmies who live on the island today," the report said. "The individual exhibits a combination of characteristics that are not primitive but instead regional and not unique but found in other modern human populations."

The original team was co-directed by Michael Morwood, from Australia's University of New England at Armidale in NSW, and Professor Radien Soejono of the Indonesian Research Centre for Archeology.

Pennsylvania State University professor of developmental genetics and evolutionary morphology Robert Eckhardt, who was part of the new team, criticised the original study for comparing the skeleton with those of homo sapiens primarily from Europe. He said a more accurate understanding of the "Hobbit" emerged when compared against humans from the same region. Several researchers had already expressed doubts over the original findings, which were published in leading British science journal, Nature, in October 2004. In March last year Adelaide University professor of anatomical sciences Maciej Henneberg said he believed the hominid was suffering from some variation of microcephaly.

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Glaciers 'shrinking for 100 years'

Greenland's glaciers have been shrinking for the past century, according to a Danish study published today, suggesting that the ice melt is not a recent phenomenon caused by global warming. Danish researchers from Aarhus University studied glaciers on Disko island, in western Greenland in the Atlantic, from the end of the 19th century until the present day. "This study, which covers 247 of 350 glaciers on Disko, is the most comprehensive ever conducted on the movements of Greenland's glaciers," glaciologist Jacob Clement Yde, who carried out the study with Niels Tvis Knudsen, said.

Using maps from the 19th century and current satellite observations, the scientists were able to conclude that "70 per cent of the glaciers have been shrinking regularly since the end of the 1880s at a rate of around eight metres per year," Mr Yde said. "We studied 95 per cent of the area covered by glaciers in Disko and everything indicates that our results are also valid for the glaciers along the coasts of the rest of Greenland," he said. The biggest reduction was observed between 1964 and 1985.

"A three-to-four degree increase of the temperature on Greenland from 1920 to 1930, and the increase recorded since 1995 has sped up the ice melt," he said. The effect of the rising temperatures in the 1920s and 1930s was "visible dozens of years later, and that of the 1990s will be (visible) in 10 or 20 years," Mr Yde said, adding that he expected Greenland's glaciers to melt even faster in the future.

The shrinking of the glaciers since the 19th century is "the result of the atmosphere's natural warming, following volcanic eruptions for example and greenhouse gases, created by human activities, which have aggravated the situation further," he said.

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GASOLINE GURU SPEAKS

Trilby Lundberg, the nation's guru of gasoline prices, has no idea how many miles her new Mercedes-Benz gets per gallon. When she has to fill the tank, she's more concerned with convenience than price. Yet for decades, the nation has turned to the assertive, 57-year-old cat lover and her twice-monthly Lundberg Survey of gas stations to keep track of the fluctuating price of gasoline....

Watching the oil industry has led Lundberg to some interesting conclusions. She condemns the "overzealous meddling" of the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies, and said government-mandated reformulation of unleaded gas and engine modifications aimed at curtailing emissions are more to blame for gas price increases than the worldwide Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

She also criticized the "woefully ignorant" media and public perception about gas prices. "It is wild-headed and often destructive," she said of the reporting. "The explanation can be boring, it can be a little bit dry, it takes a long time, and the majority of folks simply do not have that time and do not have the interest."

Lundberg has strong opinions on other issues. For instance, she calls global warming a "boogeyman for political opportunism." Those who promote the theory are trying to create a power base and "believe global warming is a reason to hike taxes and hike prices," she said.

Lundberg balks at suggestions that she is a tool of the oil industry. "What hurts me is those who call me an oil apologist or self-styled consumer advocate. I'm not," she said. "I do have passionate feelings about that."

Bob Slaughter, president of the National Petrochemical & Refining Association, said Lundberg is highly respected in the industry. "She's a character," he said. "She's first there with a national gasoline price and I think everybody from the media to (Wall) Street to the oil industry looks forward to hearing from her."

Source

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

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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

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BRITISH BUREAUCRACY FORBIDS "GREEN" TRANSPORT METHOD



It was supposed to launch a revolution in personal transport but has been stopped in its tracks by a strict interpretation of a 170-year-old law. The Government has declared that the Segway Human Transporter - a 3,000 pound self-balancing scooter - cannot be used in any public place. The scooter, which has been described unkindly as a Pogo stick on wheels or a motorised Zimmer frame, arrived with great fanfare in 2001. Dean Kamen, its American inventor, suggested that it would be the solution to all transport woes. Queues of exhaust-belching cars would soon be replaced by squadrons of Segway riders gliding silently along at 12mph.

Mr Kamen said then that it "will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy". The hyperbole provoked a backlash in the media, which largely ridiculed the invention and ignored the technical genius of the gyroscopes and microprocessors that keep it upright. However, after a slow start, sales have picked up in dozens of countries. France, Spain and most US states permit it on pavements; Austria and the Netherlands allow it on cycle paths, and in Italy it can trundle on both. On pavements, the limit in Italy and France is 6kmh (3.7mph).

In Britain the Department for Transport has welcomed the scooter with a double- whammy, invoking the Highway Act of 1835 to ban it from pavements and EU vehicle certification rules to keep it off roads. In a document, Regulations for self-balancing scooters, the department says: "You can only ride an unregistered selfbalancing scooter on land which is private property and with the landowner's permission." It rejects proposals that the Segway should be treated like the faster electric bicycle. It says: "A self-balancing scooter does not meet requirements [for electric bicycles] as it cannot be pedalled." The document also advises Segway users to wear "appropriate safety clothing at all times".

Bae Systems, which developed the Segway gyroscopes at its Plymouth research centre, accused the department of failing to test it properly. Andy Hughes, a spokesman, said that four officials attended a testing session, three of whom refused to ride it. The fourth travelled only 100 yards. "The department seems reluctant to accept new technology and there is a degree of arse-covering in the regulations," he said.

Those regulations have also angered a small but determined group of Segway commuters, who insist that they will continue to ride to work, saying they pose less risk to pedestrians than a clumsy jogger. Isidore Margaronis, 56, the director of a shipping company, has commuted by Segway for the past three years from Notting Hill in West London to his Piccadilly office. He said: "The department is taking a bureaucratic and pernickety attitude. If we have to wear protective clothing to do 12mph then joggers should have to wear motorcycle leathers." His journey takes 20 minutes by Segway or 40 minutes by bus or Tube. "I prefer the Segway because, unlike with a bike, you don't arrive in a lather. I can wear a suit and go straight into a meeting, taking my Segway up in the lift."

Jeremy Greaves, an executive for EADS, the aerospace company, said: "How can Tony Blair trumpet Britain's environmental commitments when the Government tries to stop people using such a clean and sustainable mode of transport? I'm going to carry on using it." Mr Greaves, 38, added that the only requirement for riding a Segway was to be thick-skinned. "Some people sneer but they are probably jealous that I am getting to my destination faster and having fun."

A study by Kaiserslautern university in Germany found that it took a few minutes to grasp the basic skills of Segway riding and three hours to become proficient. A rider simply leans forward to move forward and back to stop. On the original model, steering is controlled by twisting a handlebar grip. On a newer version, riders push the column left or right. The German study found that learners had a slight tendency to topple backwards if they stopped too quickly.

A department spokesman hinted that the regulations might be reviewed, adding: "We are still in contact with the company and keeping up to date with developments."

Source







BRITAIN STILL BATTLING NATURAL SELECTION



Work to clear a beauty spot of the longest stretch of the most invasive weed in Britain gets underway today when contractors start injecting every single stem with poison. Japanese knotweed has taken over a seven-mile stretch of the Tregeseal river and its tributaries in the Kenidjack Valley in Cornwall. The valley is designated an area of outstanding natural beauty, but has been overwhelmed by the densely growing knotweed, which can reach 12 ft tall. Native plants and animals have been driven away by the knotweed, which has spread so widely across the county that it is estimated to cover a total of 250 hectares.

The warmth of Cornwall makes perfect for a host of invasive plants originally imported from abroad, including the Hottentot fig, New Zealand pigmy weed and Rhododendron ponticum. But it is the knotweed that is regarded as the worst of them all and the National Trust will today begin work on a œ20,000 initiative to return the valley to its natural state.

Japanese knotweed is notoriously difficult to kill. Its roots can go 10 ft beneath the surface and it can regenerate from a missed or dropped segment as small as a drawing pin. Contractors will tackle the Kenidjack Valley invasion near St Just by hacking down the stems and then injecting almost every stump with a herbicide. The herbicide, a specially licensed glysophate, is drawn down to the roots of the plant and kills it, though the process needs to be repeated for up to three years to be fully effective. A small percentage of the plants - the knotweed has spread up to 80 ft on either side of the river - will be sprayed, but most will be injected by hand to avoid poisoning the river. It is illegal to transport Japanese knotweed or to propagate it, so the contractors will stack the cut stems on polythene until they have dried out and then burn them on the site.

Simon Ford of the National Trust, said: "The knotweed in the valley is a major problem. It's a nightmare. We've tried everything we can think of in the past to get rid of it. We've tried pulling it up, we've laid carpets of over it, all to no avail. "The normal method of control is cutting it and coming along with major amounts of herbicide, but that feels like flinging Agent Orange about - there's nothing left. "That's why for environmentallty sensitive areas like Kenidjack Valley we've developed this method of injecting herbicide in each of the hollow stems. It's laborious but seems to work."

Among the plants that have been driven out of the valley where the knotweed has become established are bluebells, thrift, sea campion, kidney vetch, yellow flag and purple loosestrife. Similarly, the knotweed monoculture drives out dippers, grey wagtails and Daubenton bats. Mr Ford added: "When you have cleared away a patch of knotweed you find that pretty well everything else has been destroyed. Nothing can compete with it. It's the most pernitious plant there is."

Source







Australian taxpayers pay to re-create a swamp

Taxpayer funds will be used to buy back environmental water flows from irrigators to help restore one of Australia's most environmentally significant wetlands. Federal Parliamentary Secretary Malcolm Turnbull yesterday announced the allocation of $13.4 million from the Water Smart Australia scheme to free about 15,000 megalitres of water for the internationally recognised Macquarie Marshes in central NSW. The funding will be matched by the NSW Government, which in July allocated funds to buy back 30,000 megalitres of water for the marshes.

The marshes have become little more than semi-arid bush as water flows have dwindled through the 150,000ha of river red gums and reeds since 2001. They are the victim of competition for land and water from the nearby grazing and cotton industries coupled with drought. As the drought has worsened, the two primary producers have been feuding over who is to blame for the environmental mess. Graziers are accused of over-stocking and siphoning off water for their own use without paying for it, while cotton growers are accused of coveting an over-allocation from the upstream Burrenjong Dam.

Mr Turnbull was joined yesterday by local MP and former National Party leader John Anderson to seek a compromise that will effectively mean taxpayers fund the water flows needed to help the marshes. Mr Turnbull said the scheme would provide a model for the Water Smart program to address other environmental problems around the nation. "Our landscape is designed to cope with significant fluctuations in rainfall, but there is no doubt we are going through a drying and heating period that means we are going to have the problem of coping with less rain. We've got to be careful not to exacerbate it."

Source

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

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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

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MORE NITPICKING LEGAL HARASSMENT OF GM RESEARCH

A federal judge has ruled that U.S. agriculture officials violated environmental laws in permitting four companies to plant genetically modified crops in Hawaii to produce experimental drugs. The order involves plantings of corn or sugarcane on Kauai, Maui, Molokai and Oahu between 2001 and 2003. U.S. District Judge Michael Seabright said the Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service flouted both the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act by not conducting preliminary environmental reviews before issuing the planting permits.

The islands are home to 329 rare species _ a quarter of all threatened and endangered species in the nation, the judge noted in the order issued late last week. Even if the inspection service is correct in its assertion that no habitats or species listed as endangered were harmed by the plantings, the agency's actions still are "tainted" because it failed to comply with a basic procedural requirement, Seabright said. EarthJustice, which represents plaintiffs in the cases, said in a news release Monday that the decision is the first federal court ruling involving biofarming.

Rachel Iadicicco, a spokeswoman for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said the agency can't comment on pending litigation but has established procedures to guide it in complying with federal environmental laws.

The four companies issued the permits were ProdiGene, Monsanto, Hawaii Agriculture Research Center and Garst Seed. All of the companies' plants used to make pharmaceutical crops already have been harvested and the companies have stopped planting the crops under the permits. The practice of using genetically engineered food crops to produce proteins that can be turned into medicines has faced growing opposition from farmers, environmentalists and big-time corporate food interests whose businesses might be affected by crop contamination. Concerns center around the fear that the altered crops will crossbreed with conventional crops and thereby make it on to the plates of unknowing consumers. But there is also the concern that such crops could hurt local endangered species.

In his order, Seabright said the service skipped the mandatory step under the Endangered Species Act of gathering information about local listed species and critical habitats. The National Environmental Policy Act also requires federal agencies to evaluate the impact of their actions on the environment. Both sides of the case have been ordered to appear in court on Aug. 22 to discuss remedies for the violations.

Source






RECENT INTERVIEW WITH BJORN LOMBORG ON AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC RADIO

MARK COLVIN: There are few people more controversial in the environmental world than the Danish economist and writer Bjorn Lomborg. His book The Sceptical Environmentalist caused a firestorm with its contention that many of the claims of the environmental movement, including much of the case for global warming, were exaggerations. He came under strong counter-attack in the scientific press, in a fight that continues to this day. Mr Lomborg is in Australia at the moment talking about a new book he's edited, called How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place . He invited a panel, including four Nobel Prize-winning economists to write about the priorities involved in such an exercise. And once again, tackling global warming was low on the list. I asked Bjorn Lomborg this week what were the priorities his experts had recommended.

BJORN LOMBORG: What they told us was that the best investments the world can do, is to prevent HIV/AIDS, to prevent malnutrition with micronutrients, to ensure free trade, and to prevent malaria. Those were the top four things that the world should do.

MARK COLVIN: Is all of this basically a big agenda to back up your ideas about global warming?

BJORN LOMBORG: No, it's not about validating my personal discussion, but it's much more about saying, isn't it curious that we've had the UN for more than 50 years, yet we have never asked ourselves, what should be our top priorities? We're a little bit like the people who walk into a restaurant and look at this big menu card and say, wow lots of different things to do, but we have no idea of what the prices are. We have no idea of the sizes of the menus that we're going to get. What the Copenhagen Consensus essentially does is, it gives you a sense of what do you get for your money? Do you get an enormous amount of good or do you get little good? And what the economists told us was, if you put a dollar into prevention of HIV/AIDS, you end up doing $40 of social good in those areas where you do it. That's a great investment.

MARK COLVIN: How do you sell a list of priorities like this to people say in Tuvalu or Kiribati who are worried about the waters lapping around the foundations of their houses?

BJORN LOMBORG: Well, of course they're concerned, and that's entirely right of them to be so. But there are many people concerned about many things. I'm sure if you go to some places, people whose mum and dad are dying from HIV/AIDS, they also have a very convincing argument. What the Nobel's told us was, if you spend a dollar on Kyoto, you will do good. But you'll only do somewhere between 2 and 25 cents worth of good. Now, in my world, I would rather spend that dollar, and do $40 worth of good, rather than spend it and just do 2 cents worth of good...

MARK COLVIN: Was Kyoto the only choice you gave them? Because everyone knew that Kyoto was a massive compromise...

BJORN LOMBORG: Oh, absolutely...

MARK COLVIN: You said it's Kyoto or...

BJORN LOMBORG: No...

MARK COLVIN: AIDS, or Kyoto or malaria?

BJORN LOMBORG: No, no. We also gave them other opportunities, for instance carbon taxes, which is a more efficient way of doing climate change regulation, and it came out higher. But still, it's not a very good investment. Now, low carbon tax, to $5 carbon tax. It's probably a good idea, it's not a tremendous idea, but it's probably a good idea. But the carbon tax that most people talk about, which is in the 30's, or even hundreds of dollars, that's certainly not a good idea.

MARK COLVIN: If climate change came, according to the worst forecasts, there are going to be millions and millions of refugees, environmental refugees.

BJORN LOMBORG: Yes.

MARK COLVIN: Surely that's going to be a bigger problem than any of the problems you're trying to address?

BJORN LOMBORG: Yeah. It's important to say, we don't look at what are the biggest problems in the world, because if there's not a good solution to it, it really doesn't matter. At the end of the day, you could say the biggest problem in the world is that we all die. But we don't have a good technology to avoid that. So we start at looking at, what are the solutions? Now, reasonably we can expect, as the Kyoto Protocol shows us, we can expect perhaps to cut carbon emissions by 30 per cent from what they would otherwise have been over the next 10, 20 years.

The problem is, that will do virtually no good. So if we get the worst-case outcomes, with millions of people for instance, being refugees, and a lot of people in the developing world having huge problems from climate change, the real question is, would we have spent a lot of money doing fairly little good for these people anyway in 100 years? Or would we rather have given them clean drinking water, sanitation, basic healthcare, education and done a lot of good, and made them better able to deal with the problems that they will have in 100 years?

MARK COLVIN: So are you not going to address the problem of whether there will be massive climate change or not? I mean, do you address that?

BJORN LOMBORG: We look at the standard forecasts of what is going to happen. It is important to say a lot of the things that you hear, for instance from Al Gore's movie is vastly overblown, in the sense that it's, in my understanding, beyond worse-case scenario analysis. For instance, Al Gore will show us what happens if the water level will rise seven metres. But the UN Climate Panel is telling us it'll rise somewhere between 30 and 50 centimetres. Now, there's a huge difference. Thirty to 50 centimetres will be a problem, but it will be a problem that we will deal with. So the argument again is to say do you want to spend a lot of money doing very little good, or do you want spend the same amount of money and do an incredible amount of good? I think that is the bottom line that we try to get people to focus on.

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An interesting Leftist comment on Australia's Federal environment policies

With its strongly pro-business orientation, the Howard Government has found it difficult to gain credibility for its environmental policies. It has nevertheless made considerable headway through the use of a clever and aggressive strategy of dividing the environment movement by cultivating friendly organisations and individuals and punishing those that refuse to fall into line.

WWF (formerly the World Wide Fund for Nature) is the foremost of the friendly organisations. It is close to the Government, providing a stream of favourable commentary on its policies and bestowing several awards for the Government's environmental achievements, including three "Gift to the Earth" awards, which the Environment Minister, Ian Campbell, displays in his office. In return, the Government has been generous, sending tens of millions to the fund for various programs.

The force behind the emergence of the organisation as the leading group backing the Government's environment policy is the businessman Robert Purves. He has made a very large donation to WWF and is now its president. Purves has drawn Tim Flannery into the orbit of conservative environmentalism by funding the preparation of Flannery's book on climate change, The Weather Makers. Flannery, who came late to the climate change debate, has eloquently summarised the work of hundreds of climate scientists and his book has undoubtedly raised public awareness and understanding of the threats posed by global warming. Purves is said to have spent $1 million promoting Flannery's book, including costly backlit billboards outside Qantas Club lounges around the country.

But isn't there an inconsistency here? Why would Purves, sympathetic to the Government, spend large sums funding and promoting a book that rings alarm bells about climate change, which can only make life more difficult for the Government? The answer is that Flannery's book does not make life harder for the Government, but sends the sort of message the Government wants us to hear.

Flannery is an advocate of individual consumer action as the answer to environmental problems. Instead of being understood as a set of problems endemic to our economic and social structures, we are told we each have to take personal responsibility for our contribution to every problem. Flannery concludes his book by arguing that "there is no need to wait for government action" - voluntary action by well-meaning consumers is the only way to save the planet. "It is my firm belief that all the efforts of government and industry will come to naught unless the good citizen and consumer takes the initiative, and in tackling climate change the consumer is in a most fortunate position." He then lists 11 things concerned citizens can do to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions, urging each of us to "do the right thing" in the belief that these noble appeals will transform the market: "If enough of us buy green power, solar panels, solar hot water systems and hybrid vehicles, the cost of these items will plummet."

This is music to the Government's ears. The assignment of individual responsibility is consistent with the economic rationalist view of the world, which wants everything left to the market, even when the market manifestly fails. Yet it is at best a naive, and at worst a reckless, approach to the looming catastrophe of climate change. The world did not eliminate the production of ozone-depleting substances by relying on the good sense of consumers in buying CFC-free fridges. We insisted governments negotiate an international treaty that banned CFCs. We did not invite car buyers to pay more to install catalytic converters, the greatest factor in reducing urban air pollution. We called on government to legislate to require all car makers to include them.

When pressed, Flannery will call on government to act, too, but his consistent headline message is an appeal to consumers. Thus, when accepting a prize for his book recently, he gave a four-word acceptance speech: "Install a solar panel." Green consumerism such as that advocated by Flannery privatises responsibility for environmental decline, shifting blame from elected governments and industry onto the shoulders of individual citizens. The cause of climate change becomes the responsibility of "all of us", which, in effect, means nobody. It is obvious why a government that wants to do nothing finds such an approach appealing: it can pretend to be concerned while protecting powerful business interests.

Flannery's "firm belief" that we can be saved only if consumers take the initiative is one he shares with the ideologues of the right-wing think tanks who argue that environmental problems should be left to the unfettered market. If consumers don't make green choices then it is obvious they don't care much about the environment. But it is not just his advocacy of do-nothing green consumerism that endears Flannery to the Government. Alone among Australian environmental advocates, he has declared his support for the development of a nuclear industry. The Prime Minister, John Howard, now regularly buttresses his nuclear push by saying that even some environmentalists "like Tim Flannery" support nuclear power.

Even Howard knows it would be folly to build nuclear power plants in Australia, a fact that his nuclear inquiry will conveniently affirm. The Prime Minister's game is to provide cover for his plan to expand uranium mining and get an enrichment industry established. Flannery is now part of the climate change debate, and whether he likes it or not, has become a trump card in Howard's hand.

Source

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

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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

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CALIFORNIA: ANY EXCUSE TO STOP DEVELOPMENT

Environmental groups plan to file a lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court today claiming that flood-control officials violated state law by allowing major levee modifications in San Joaquin County without considering the effect of global warming. The groups, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, assert that the sea level rise associated with climate change could eventually overtop those levees, putting thousands of people at risk. The suit targets a permit approved June 26 by the state Reclamation Board that cleared the way for the River Islands project to build 224 luxury homes on top of a 300-foot-wide "superlevee" on Stewart Tract, an island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Eventually, River Islands plans to build 11,000 homes on the island, which lies within the Lathrop city limits.

Barry Nelson, a senior policy advocate at NRDC, claims the board violated the California Environmental Quality Act by failing to examine how sea level rise will affect those levees. Other plaintiffs include the Natural Heritage Institute and the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. "This (governor's) administration has made climate change a priority, but the Reclamation Board just hasn't read the memo, because they're still refusing to even analyze that issue," Nelson said.

The majority of the world's climate scientists agree that the Earth's temperatures are rising, and that human activities are partly to blame. Burning coal, gasoline and other fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which traps more of the sun's heat. Computer modeling by climate experts shows that this warming effect could raise California sea levels more than 2 feet by the end of this century. This would affect not just ocean-front communities, but also the Delta and its 1,100-mile network of levees. A study by the state Department of Water Resources last month estimated that a sea level rise of just 1 foot would likely flood the three westernmost Delta islands: Jersey, Twitchell and Sherman. Many Delta levees may have to be raised in response to sea level rise. But higher levees were not part of the Reclamation Board's discussion about River Islands.

Board member Butch Hodgkins declined to comment on the case Thursday, citing the threat of pending litigation. The board's attorney, Scott Morgan, and its president, Ben Carter, could not be reached for comment. Nor could River Islands Project Manager Susan Dell'Osso. DWR is working on two major studies that examine the future of the Delta in the face of climate change, partly in response to a directive by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has made climate change a priority and who appointed the current Reclamation Board. But it is still rare to see the threat of rising seas filter down to routine decision-making at any government agency.

Nelson said the lawsuit could change that. "This is potentially an important precedent because it is the Reclamation Board's job to protect Californians from flooding, and climate change has the potential to significantly increase flooding risk," he said. Jeffrey Mount, a former Reclamation Board member, said it is absolutely part of the board's job to consider sea level rise. Mount, a geology professor at UC Davis, co-authored a 2004 study that found a 2-in-3 chance for multiple levee failures in the Delta by the middle of this century. The cause: a combination of sea level rise, earthquakes and subsidence, the process in which soil loss causes the interior of Delta islands to slowly sink below surrounding water levels. "The decision that the Reclamation Board is making today may not be durable in the face of climate change," Mount said. "People should be factoring that into their thinking when they're building these projects."

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THE RENAISSANCE OF NUCLEAR POWER IN EUROPE

Soaring oil prices, uncertain Russian energy supplies and fears of global warming are fuelling a European and global nuclear renaissance just two decades after the Chernobyl disaster shook faith in atomic power. Fears of energy shortages appear to be trumping anti-nuclear sentiments - even in Germany despite its decision to close all nuclear power stations by 2021. Most surveys show a 50-50 split and some polls even show a majority of Germans in favour of nuclear power, compared to 65 per cent opposed after the 1986 accident. 'There's a lot more approval for nuclear power than there was 15 years ago,' said Christian Woessner, a spokesman for the German Atomic Forum, a pro-nuclear lobby group. 'We are at the start of a new investment cycle (in Europe.)'

Nuclear power is getting a hard second look not only because of oil prices and alarm over Russia's strong-arm tactics in cutting off natural gas to Ukraine last January. It also could provide a way to cut greenhouse gases blamed in part for global warming. Andris Piebalgs, the European Union Commissioner in charge of energy, says nuclear power needs to be regarded as part of an 'energy mix' to ensure security for the 25-nation bloc. 'The EU must continue to develop its expertise in the field,' insists Piebalgs.

Numerous European countries are already watering down or reversing laws intended to curtail or abolish nuclear plants. That means many of the 170 nuclear stations operating on the continent, up to the Russian border, will operate far longer than anticipated. Sweden, 47-per-cent dependent on nuclear power, has repeatedly delayed plans to shut down all its stations, extending some lifelines to 2050, well beyond a 2010 target date. 'Under Swedish law the plants cannot be closed until there is a viable alternative,' explains Woessner.

Switzerland, 32-per-cent dependent on nuclear power, has overturned a moratorium on new nuclear plants. Belgium, 56-per-cent dependent on nuclear power, has extended its phase-out period for at least another 20 years, although it is unclear if new plants will be built. 'There is a clear and visible change of mood - most governments and political parties are now seriously reconsidering nuclear power,' said an economist at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who asked not to be named.

That means new nuclear plants are again being built across Europe, mirroring trends in the US, where 14 new plants are planned after a 30-year hiatus, and China, where nearly three dozen are set to be built. New plants are slated to open in Finland in 2009; Romania in 2007, 2013 and 2014; and Bulgaria in 2013. The Czech Republic could build at least two more plants if needed.

The Baltic states, still not connected to the European electricity grid, are determined to pursue self sufficiency because they fear Moscow's political blackmailing tactics. Lithuania, supported by Latvia and Estonia, is expected to approve a new nuclear station to replace the Chernobyl-type reactor at Ignalina by 2015. Part of the current plant was closed in 2004 and block two will be shut in 2009. Lithuania is 71-per-cent dependent on nuclear power.

Even Ukraine, home to the ill-fated Chernobyl plant and 50-per- cent dependent on nuclear power, is considering a big expansion in the field. Although critics note that Kiev's financing remains totally unclear, the government says it wants to build up to 20 new nuclear power stations.

France, which generates a whopping 78 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power, under President Jacques Chirac wants to build third and fourth generation plants to keep its position as the world's top civil nuclear power. A new reactor is slated to open in 2012 in the northern town of Flamanville. In addition, France is home to an international effort to build the world's biggest experimental fusion reactor. The International Thermonuclear Reactor (ITER) - which is supposed to produce less waste and be safer than normal nuclear plants - has support from the EU, US, China, India, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

France also provides a lightning rod for environmental protests over nuclear waste, a hotly contested issue at Germany's Gorleben facility, for example. It has a reprocessing industry that not only handles waste from abroad, including Germany and Japan, but also helps fund the French nuclear programme.

Britain, after years of backing away, appears poised to join the trend and increase its 20-per-cent dependence on nuclear power. Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to to call on private energy companies next month to build the country's next generation of nuclear stations. However, Europe's largest economy - Germany - is still holding off. Chancellor Angela Merkel and her conservatives support nuclear power but, under the government's grand coalition accord with the Social Democrats (SPD), the ban on new plants and a phase-out of 17 generators by 2021 remains. But that could change if Merkel is re-elected at the head of a centre-right government without the SPD in coming years.

Source





TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Excerpt from "Energy Economics"

On the sources of technological change: Assessing the evidence

By: Leon Clarke, John Weyant and Alicia Birky

Abstract

This paper uses a selective review of the economic literature on technological change to support four points that are important for interpreting and incorporating technological change into formal models of energy and the environment. The review (1) supports the notion that no single source dominates the process of technological change. It supports roles for R&D and learning-by-doing within an industry, as well as for spillovers from other industries engaged in both of these activities. The literature also (2) supports a strong role for spillovers; (3) indicates that these spillovers are often indirect, requiring own-industry activities to utilize; and (4) indicates that simple experience curve calibrations often used in formal models likely include a range of sources of technological change in addition to learning-by-doing, some of which might not be induced by the sorts of policies typically considered in the climate context.

1. Introduction

A range of studies have demonstrated that technological change can reduce the costs of stabilizing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (GTSP, 2000 and Weyant, 2004). Influencing the rate and direction of technological change has become a cornerstone of government policies toward climate change (see, for example, Abraham, 2004). Not surprisingly, renewed policy interest in technological change has been accompanied by increased interest in more effectively representing the process of technological change in computer-based models of the economic, energy, and other interactions that underlie the emissions of greenhouse gases (henceforth referred to as "formal models").1 Enhanced representations of technological change, along with enhanced interpretation of these representations, can increase the policy-relevance of modeling exercises.

The fundamental challenge modelers face in this regard is that of meaningfully representing a variegated and interacting set of sources of technological change in simplified modeling frameworks. Technological change is a multi-faceted and complex process. It arises from a variety of interacting activities, including publicly funded R&D, privately funded R&D, and learning-by-doing. In addition, much of the change in technologies relevant in the climate context may arise through spillovers arising from activities undertaken in largely unrelated sectors. Models that miss critical pathways or ascribe influence inappropriately could potentially arrive at erroneous, incomplete, or misleading policy conclusions.

A companion to this paper (Clarke et al., in press) explores the question: what approaches are used in formal models to represent the sources of technological change and what do these approaches correspond to in terms of real-world sources of change? That paper puts forth a framework for linking the representations in formal models to the real-world sources of technological change, which we will briefly preview in Section 2.2 as a means to motivate the central issues of this paper. The framework is based on understanding (1) the activities that are used in models to drive technological change, with the two primary options being R&D and production or use of a technology, and (2) the "location" of these activities, either within the industry in question or outside the industry in question, with extra-industry activities being equated with spillovers.

This paper raises the follow-on question: how important are the different sources of technological change? A best case basis for answering this question would be a set of comprehensive studies that consider all the possible sources in concert, balancing them against one another and exploring their interactions in the sort of mathematical fashion that is needed to support computer-based modeling. While the empirical economic literature on technological change is extensive, it does not include such comprehensive analyses. Instead, it includes a multitude of partial analyses, each considering one or several aspects of the question.

In this paper, we will selectively draw on this literature to emphasize four points that, while they are not a full answer to the driving question, we believe are critical to interpreting and representing technological change in formal models. First, there is ample evidence that a range of sources - learning-by-doing, R&D, and spillovers - all play roles at different times and for different technologies. Further, there is little compelling evidence that one or two sources are dominant. In fact, one of the fundamental lessons of the empirical literature on technological change is that single-source or simplistic, additive models of technological change can be misleading. Second, studies suggest that spillovers account for a substantial component of technological change. This provides an important counterpoint to modeling efforts in which all change arises through own-industry effects, and it provides a justification for exogenous specifications of technological change in some cases. Third, studies also suggest that spillovers are often "indirect" - rather than directly influencing change, they create a pool of opportunity that can be exploited by activities undertaken in the home industry. This implies that modeling the interactions between own-industry effects and spillovers is an important area for model development. Finally, while statistical studies indicate a robust correlation between production and technological change, there is little evidence that this correlation is primarily a function of learning-by-doing. Factors such as R&D and spillovers play an important role in technological change and therefore in these correlations, particularly over long time frames and broad technology definitions. Consequently, simple experience curve studies should be interpreted and applied with caution.

The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 summarizes the material in Clarke et al. It provides a brief background discussion of R&D, learning-by-doing, and spill overs, and it summarizes the framework for classifying sources of technological change. Section 3 presents the selective literature in support of the four main points. Section 4 provides closing thoughts.

[...]

4. Summary

The objective of this paper has been to comment on the question: how important are the various sources of technological change? We have selectively reviewed the economic literature on technological change to put forth and provide support for four general points that we believe are important for interpreting and incorporating technological change in formal models.

(1) Our review supports the notion that no single source dominates the process of technological change. The literature supports roles for R&D and learning-by-doing within an industry, as well as for spillovers from other industries engaged in both of these activities. In particular, (2) the literature supports a strong role for spillovers; (3) it indicates that these spillovers are often indirect, requiring own-industry activities to utilize; and (4) it indicates that simple experience curve calibrations likely include a range of sources of technological change in addition to learning-by-doing.

The lesson from these observations is to be cautious in interpreting the policy conclusions of models that assume only a single source of technological progress or that neglect critical factors such as spillovers. This includes virtually all formal models in use today, implying a need both for more comprehensive treatments of technological change and more research to understand the nature and magnitude of any distortions of policy conclusions from models with limited representations of technological change. It is not possible to fully represent the process of technological change, just as it is not possible to fully represent the complete set of economic forces that influence decisions made by those whose behavior is represented in formal models. However, it is productive to continually move toward more complete representations of technological change and to understand the effects of limited representations.

We close by noting that, from a broader perspective, the importance of extra-industry sources of technological change calls for a broad view of the climate change technology development enterprise. Applied energy R&D and technology deployment are not the only long-term means of supporting climate change technology development. The value of a broad and robust technological and scientific enterprise, including goal-driven basic research, should not be ignored. Our selective review finds no strong evidence to indicate that this broader enterprise is of lesser importance over the long term than are applied energy R&D and the deployment of newly emerging technologies.

More here




Greenie-inspired land-use restrictions under fire in Australia

State governments must release more land or housing affordability will remain a problem, Prime Minister John Howard says. Mr Howard said state governments are using the housing development process as a money-maker. "The cost of land is the problem," Mr Howard told the South Australian Liberal Party annual general meeting in Adelaide today. "Until state governments around Australia start releasing more land and stop using the development process as a method of raising revenue, we are going to continue to have a problem with the affordability of housing.

"I don't suggest that interest rates are irrelevant, not for a moment. "But if we are to have a proper debate about the cost of housing, state governments have got to face the need to release more land." Mr Howard said security for families depended on good job prospects and housing affordability. "Having interest rates at a low level are important to that," he said. "But even more important is to make sure that the ordinary economy of supply and demand are in better balance than they are at the present time."

He said unless state governments addressed the issue "we will continue to have this difficulty with the affordability of housing". "I do worry about that," he said. "I worry about the affordability of housing for young Australians, it's all right for those of riper years but it's not good for young people. "It's very important we give attention to this issue and it's very important we have an honest debate and an honest discussion about the fundamental causes of the problem."

Source

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

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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

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THE DOG THAT DID NOT BARK

Sometimes what is not said can be very interesting. The journal abstract below is a case in point. It is allegedly an attempt to explain the increase in wildfires in the USA in recent times. The authors looked at various possible causes but overlooked the really obvious cause -- the onset of Greenie opposition to conventional forestry management techniques -- small preventive burns during winter in particular. Stopping managed burns has simply caused huge uncontrolled summer burns

Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity

By: A. L. Westerling, H. G. Hidalgo, D. R. Cayan, T. W. Swetnam

Western United States forest wildfire activity is widely thought to have increased in recent decades, yet neither the extent of recent changes nor the degree to which climate may be driving regional changes in wildfire has been systematically documented. Much of the public and scientific discussion of changes in western United States wildfire has focused instead on the effects of 19th- and 20th-century land-use history. We compiled a comprehensive database of large wildfires in western United States forests since 1970 and compared it with hydroclimatic and land-surface data. Here, we show that large wildfire activity increased suddenly and markedly in the mid-1980s, with higher large-wildfire frequency, longer wildfire durations, and longer wildfire seasons. The greatest increases occurred in mid-elevation, Northern Rockies forests, where land-use histories have relatively little effect on fire risks and are strongly associated with increased spring and summer temperatures and an earlier spring snowmelt.

Source






IMPROVED RICE

But will it get past the Greenies? They routinely oppose crop improvements on one pretext or another



As lifeguards say: If you're in trouble in the water, don't panic -- you'll tire yourself out. Turns out, the same advice works for rice. If submerged, the staple crop for half the world's population will use up energy reserves trying to grow above the water and die in a matter of days. That's a big problem in many parts of Asia, where deep flooding damages an estimated 25 million acres of rice each year.

Now, a team of scientists, including several researchers at the University of California, Davis, has bred a rice that "knows" to save its energy when underwater. It can wait out floods of two weeks or longer. The new breed's special ability also could prove useful in California by giving rice farmers another tool for killing weeds without using herbicide. Most weeds, like most standard varieties of rice, can't survive for long underwater. With the new flood-tolerant rice variety, farmers could drown their weeds without killing their crop.

The submersible rice marks one of the first successful uses of a new plant-breeding method that may someday allow researchers to develop food crops able to withstand not only flooding, but also cold weather, drought, disease and salty soil -- without the use of controversial genetic engineering techniques.

Here's how the flood-tolerant rice knows to stay calm under water: When rice is submerged, the gas ethylene builds up around the plant. In most varieties of rice, ethylene triggers a series of reactions that cause the plant to grow rapidly toward the surface. But if the water is too deep, the rice will exhaust its energy reserves and die before it can reach the water surface. Being underwater inhibits photosynthesis, meaning that the rice plant has a hard time generating more energy for itself.

The new rice variety contains genes that keep the plant from responding to the buildup of ethylene. Instead of growing rapidly, it shuts down for two weeks or more, conserving energy until -- it is hoped -- the water subsides and photosynthesis can start up again. The idea to develop a flood-tolerant rice sprouted about 50 years ago, when researchers realized that a variety grown by farmers in eastern India could survive long periods under water. But it tended to yield only a small amount of poor-quality grain. So plant breeders tried to cross it with higher-yielding rice varieties to create a new, best-of-both-worlds strain.

For decades, though, scientists couldn't manage to breed in the submersible trait without also bringing along the eastern Indian rice's undesirable traits. That's a common problem in plant breeding, said Pam Ronald, a UC Davis plant pathologist who began working on the problem a decade ago. A paper she co-authored describing the rice research appears in the Aug. 10 issue of the scientific journal Nature. "Using traditional breeding, it takes a long time to get rid of the traits that you don't want," she said. Enter the new technique: marker-assisted breeding.

With this method, pioneered by a Cornell University plant scientist, researchers first identify the genetic "fingerprint" of the genes that they'd like to bring from one variety to another. Then, just as in traditional plant breeding, the two varieties are cross-pollinated, producing many offspring. Next, the breeder identifies which of the offspring appears to have the desirable trait, but not the undesirable ones, and then the process is repeated, over and over.

Without the genetic fingerprint, selecting for complex traits is extremely difficult. With the new technique, though, researchers look directly at the DNA of the offspring to determine exactly what has been inherited. "If you can do that in the lab, it's very helpful -- instead of having to flood a rice field 4 feet deep" to see if the offspring resist flooding, said Kent McKenzie, director of the nonprofit Rice Experiment Station in Biggs in Butte County. McKenzie did not work on the submersible rice project. It's similar to what viewers see on the television show "CSI," he said, "where you can apply a (test) and tell how people are related," he said.

Marker-assisted breeding is important because it is considered by most countries to be an extension of conventional plant breeding. So-called genetic engineering is much more controversial. While researchers have used genetic engineering to develop many rice varieties, none is widely planted.

The flood-tolerant genes have been bred into two varieties of rice, one popular with California farmers, the other grown in south Asia. It will likely take several more years of testing before California farmers adopt the new rice, Ronald said. But farmers in India and Bangladesh already are using the Indian variety, said David Mackill, a plant breeder at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines and a former UC Davis professor. Its ultimate success, Mackill said, will depend primarily on whether farmers find its special ability useful, and, of course, whether it tastes good. "When you release a new variety, you just cross your fingers and hope that the farmers will like it," he said.

Source







How Green Is Your Church?

In the first chapter of the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve are commanded to "tend and keep" the Garden of Eden, as well as to "fill the Earth", and "subdue" and "have dominion" over the creation. It is clear that mankind is given a dominant role in the biblical creation, with God's permission to use the Earth's natural resources to serve our needs.

Yet, we now know that it is possible to damage the creation in ways that makes portions of it unfit for further use for many years. Some chemicals we have developed are very hazardous to humans. For instance, the generation and safe storage of nuclear waste from power plants remain challenges. The Earth is marvelously resilient, constantly cleansing our air and water, yet we know from experience that there are limits to this resiliency.

The tension over what constitutes environmental "stewardship" has led to a wide range of opinions within the Christian church on the subject. Some churches have been actively involved in the environmental movement since the 1970's. The concern has been expressed in ways as small as recycling waste, to what can only be called "Earth worship", elevating the value of the creation to a position above that of mankind.

The past several months have had considerable activity in the Christian church on the subject of climate change. On February 1st of this year, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) announced that they would not adopt a position statement on global warming that they had been considering since 2004. The NAE, which claims to represent 30 million church members, noted that there is considerable disagreement within the church regarding the causes and severity of, as well as the responses to, the global warming threat. The NAE decision greatly disappointed environmentalists. Then, later in the month, 86 evangelical leaders calling themselves the Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI) issued a statement at a press conference that called for action to fight global warming. The ECI claimed that the threat from global warming was greatest for the world's poor, and so Christians must be involved in the issue. The diverse approaches represented by the positions of the NAE and ECI illustrate the wide range of views within the church on the subject of global warming.

Meanwhile, a new group calling itself the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance (ISA) has joined the fray by calling for prudence in how the global warming threat is approached. The ISA, in which I participate, tries to point out that the biggest threat to the poor is, not surprisingly, poverty. Inexpensive forms of energy are required for the poor of the world to have just the basic necessities of life (clean water, refrigerated food, etc.). The ISA believes that approaches to fighting global warming that end up making energy more expensive will actually hurt the poor before the poor ever become aware of climate change. We adhere to the "Cornwall Declaration", which folds in the economic realities that must be considered before one can truly 'help the poor' without doing more harm than good.

Indeed, the developed world has made itself relatively immune from most of nature's threats through advanced technologies in home construction, heating and cooling, refrigeration, medicines, transportation, agriculture, and a wide variety of modern amenities that we take for granted. Would you rather live where the women spend most of their day walking great distances to carry water, firewood, and dung home so that food can be prepared in a smoke-filled hut, where everyone then breathes in a variety of life-threatening contaminants? This is how much of the undeveloped world lives.

Now, as a result of the recent heat wave in the eastern U.S., Pat Robertson has joined those who consider manmade global warming to be a serious problem, even though the country has experienced higher temperatures in the 1920's and 1930's. It seems to be human nature for people that experience some perceived weather change over their lifetime to think that the change is not only real, but is part of a long-term trend. Even James Hansen has admitted that the global warming signal is still not big enough to reliably discern in the presence of natural climate variability.

All Christians are united in the belief that the poor should be helped. But in today's world, with a global economy, what constitutes 'help' can be muddy. Sending millions of dollars in aid to an African country where most of the funds are siphoned off to help keep a tyrant in power is one illustration of the complexities involved in simple applications of Christian charity. Farm subsidies in the United States have the unintended consequence of making the price of produce in poor countries uncompetitive, perpetuating poverty in those countries.

Bjorn Lomborg, a self-proclaimed environmentalist, assembled a panel of experts in economics who were charged with determining -- given a fixed amount of money to be dedicated to improving the human conditions -- what actions give the biggest returns for the least money. The result was the "Copenhagen Consensus", with over a dozen policy approaches prioritized in terms of bang-for-the-buck. Fighting climate change was at the bottom of the list. Fighting malaria, AIDS, provision of clean water and other sanitation measures were a few that were at or near the top of the list.

As has often been the case where economics and policy intersect, good intentions are not enough. The lesson for the church is, while it is one thing to agree to "help the world's poor", it is another thing entirely to determine how to best spend limited financial resources. Unless we examine the consequences of our charitable efforts, it is entirely possible to inadvertently make matters worse, rather than better.

Source






Australian farmers campaign to reverse knee-jerk Greenie bans

Farmers in the Nyngan, Cobar and Tottenham districts of western NSW are celebrating a win in their campaign to sway public opinion about the clearing of native invasive scrub in order to have native vegetation regulations changed. A national current affairs television program aired a story filmed in the far west yesterday morning which challenged claims by green groups that land clearing is damaging the environment.

The chairman of the Regional Community Survival Group, Doug Menzies, says it was a real victory for farmers. "I think it should go a long way to debunking the myth that western New South Wales or the so-called hot spot for clearing in western New South Wales is not tearing the environment apart or anything and quite the contrary, in fact," Mr Menzies said.

The Opposition spokesman on Natural Resources, Adrian Piccoli, says he is hoping the revelations about flaws in land clearing policy will mean a return to science-based decisions. He says locking up land that is now being invaded by woody weeds was driven by emotion because the Labor Government has had to mould policy to secure Green preferences. Mr Piccoli says the story on the Sunday program has now taken the debate to a wide metropolitan audience. "Farmers have had a lot of difficulty getting the message across to the media about the good things that some of those farm practices achieve and what are some of the negative consequences of current government policy," he said. "I think the Sunday program illustrated that this sentimental notion that you can just lock up areas of land and it will return to some sort of pristine environment is not in fact correct."

Mr Menzies says his group will maintain its community-funded PR campaign until next year's state election. "I think it's going to take us a little while, the Greenies have been working on this for 30 years so we're not going to catch up overnight," he said. "But we've got to keep plugging, keep telling the truth, you know, we've got problems that we can demonstrate but that's something the other side doesn't have, they've got to rely on rhetoric and nonsense."

Source

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

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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

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WashPost Highlights Argument That Heat Wave 'Linked to Global Warming'

Post lifted from Newsbusters

Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin puts the pedal to the metal in her Friday story, "More Frequent Heat Waves Linked to Global Warming." We're told "scientists who have studied decades of weather records and computer models" are connecting the heat to Al Gore's favorite bogeyman.

Eilperin lines up all the studies promoted by global-warming salesmen, and the skeptics aren't granted an appearance untilÿthe end, in paragraph 18: "Some climate experts and industry lobbyists, however, question the correlation between global warming and heat waves."

But here's one place where I just start to choke on the panicked claims.

Since July, 179 Americans, most of them Californians, have died in the current heat wave; more than 52,000 died during the 2003 episode in Europe, where air conditioning is less common.

Excuse me? A heat wave with the death toll ofÿan Indonesian tsunami? Where does this number come from? Eilperin has no footnote. The data comes from the Earth Policy Institute, a group of hard-core greenies run by Lester Brown. Janet Larsen crunches her questionable numbers this way:

Of the new information that has trickled out over the last few years, the biggest surprise has come from Italy. According to the Italian National Institute of Statistics, the summer of 2003 yielded more than 18,000 excess deaths when compared with 2002. In August alone, 9,700 fatalities were likely connected to the high temperatures, which in parts of Italy averaged 16 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than in the preceding year. These elevated numbers far exceed the Italian Health Ministry's early assessment that some 4,000 people died from heat country-wide during the hottest days.

The Italian site is here, although I can't find this data easily. But notice how much guesswork seems involved in this, that 10,000 fatalities were "likely" connected to the heat? And how can an Italian health ministry underestimate the number of heat-wave deaths by 14,000 people?

Reporters like Eilperin ought to note to readers that groups like the Earth Policy Institute are putting out their data with the intention of scaring people into liberal political action. As their own website explained their mission:

The Earth's capacity to support the economy continues to deteriorate. The gap between what we need to do to arrest the deterioration of the Earth and what we are doing continues to widen. Somehow we have to turn the tide. There is a need for a new initiative, a new organization, and a new organizational model, one engaged in a research program and research products that are designed for use by the media and that are directed at policymakers. The goal of the Earth Policy Institute is to raise public awareness to the point where it will support an effective public response to the threats posed by continuing population growth, rising CO2 emissions, the loss of plant and animal species, and the many other trends that are adversely affecting the Earth. The dissemination of information from the Institute is designed to help set the public agenda.

There is certainly nothing wrong with trying to set the public agenda. But it ought to make reporters more skeptical when they're dealing with scientific claims, especially big heat-wave death counts that suddenly spurt upward dramatically two or three years after the fact.

Natural fertilizer rejected

The Chinese and Indians wouldn't believe it!

Los Angeles is challenging a new voter-approved ban that will soon block the city from dumping almost all of its treated sewage on rural farm fields near Bakersfield. The lawsuit also contends the ban is forcing the city to seek alternative ways to dispose of the sludge "at a cost of millions of dollars and great environmental harm." Two Southern California sanitation districts, farmers who spread the biosolids on their land, and businesses that transport the sludge are also listed as plaintiffs.

Even though the waste isn`t spread on land where food is grown for market, the ban was overwhelmingly approved in June by Kern County voters who were convinced that the unsavory mixture fouls the air and endangers the groundwater in the area, about 115 miles north of Los Angeles. The ban takes effect at the end of the year.

The Environmental Protection Agency decided in the early 1990s that spreading treated sewage waste over farmland was preferable to sending it out to sea or pouring it in landfills. Since then, urban centers have trucked their sewage to rural areas, where the waste primarily is used as fertilizer for animal feed crops. Southern California sewage districts trucked about 470,000 tons of sewage sludge last year to Kern County, one of the nation`s most productive farming regions.

Source





New Alaska oil leases being offered

The Interior Department is set to open a vast area of environmentally sensitive wetlands in Alaska to new oil drilling, even as opponents point to corroding pipelines to the east at Prudhoe Bay as a reason to keep the area off-limits. The lease sale, opposed by environmentalists and some members of Congress, comes as federal regulators and a House committee investigate inspection and maintenance programs of BP-Alaska where widespread pipeline corrosion forced the partial shutdown of Prudhoe Bay oil production Aug. 6.

Government geologists believe at least 2 billion barrels of oil and huge amounts of natural gas lie beneath the coastal lagoons, river deltas and sedge grass meadows - an area also where caribou give birth to their calves and thousands of geese migrate each summer to molt. The lake and its surrounding wetlands are within the federal National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA), a vast area of 22 million acres set aside in 1923 by the federal government for its oil and gas resources.

They contend that the risks to the environment were reinforced by the recent disclosure of shoddy maintenance, inadequate inspections and corroded pipes that led to the partial shutdown of North Slope oil production. BP Alaska has said it is replacing two thirds of its 22-mile Prudhoe Bay feeder pipeline system because of corrosion. But the oil industry says it spends tens of millions of dollars for environmental protection on the North Slope and using modern technology can explore and develop oil fields in sensitive areas without a risk to wildlife and the environment.

Recently, 19 senators and 66 House members separately urged Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to reconsider offering leases in the Lake Teshekpuk area. Interior`s Bureau of Land Management said that in its upcoming lease offering it will limit the surface areas within the nearly 500,000 acres to protect geese molting and caribou calving areas. The restrictions apply to roads and drilling pads, but not to elevated 30-inch pipelines.

Edward Bovy, a spokesman for BLM-Alaska, said the agency`s restrictions on surface activity are aimed to protect the environment, but that pipeline safety and integrity "are separate issues" and do not affect leasing decisions.

Source





Australia to expand its nuclear industry



The Bush administration has indicated it will support Australia developing a uranium enrichment industry, despite the White House's policy to restrict new entrants to the world nuclear club. In response to John Howard's campaign to ensure the existing nuclear powers do not lock Australia out of future nuclear development, a senior US official has said "special rules" apply to Australia and Canada. Dennis Spurgeon, assistant secretary for nuclear power at the US Department of Energy, said Australia and Canada were likely to be given special consideration because they would play a pivotal role in a new nuclear suppliers club the US is trying to establish. "I think Australia, and Canada for that matter, play a special role in world nuclear affairs because obviously you are two countries that have the majority of economically recoverable uranium resources," Mr Spurgeon said in an exclusive interview with The Australian yesterday.

Asked if this gave Australia and Canada a strong bargaining chip in negotiating their entry into a new nuclear club, he replied: "Exactly. So in any discussion, you have to take into account the facts as they lay." "I think Australia is viewed as a totally reliable and trustworthy country, so I don't think there is any issue there whatsoever."

The Government has launched an inquiry, headed by former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski, to examine the economics of expanding Australia's uranium mining sector, becoming involved in uranium enrichment and establishing a domestic nuclear power industry. It comes after the Bush administration unveiled last year the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which is designed to restrict the number of countries enriching uranium to existing players such as the US, Britain, China, Russia and France.

But under the GNEP, nuclear fuel would be shipped to feed energy-hungry developing countries and the spent fuel taken back to the supplier so it could not reprocessed and used for weapons. Its clear aim is to prevent nuclear proliferation as witnessed in rogue states such as North Korea and as fears grow that Iran's civilian nuclear push is simply a cover for nuclear weapons manufacture. It is also designed to promote a fuel source that does not produce greenhouse gases.

But the plan caught the Howard Government off guard and it was one of the main issues the Prime Minister raised with US President George W.Bush on his trip to Washington in May. Mr Howard then travelled to Canada to discuss the GNEP program with counterpart Stephen Harper. Last month, Mr Howard told The Australian he was not suspicious of the initiative "but I'm keen to keep an eye on it and keen to ensure it doesn't damage Australia's position".

The GNEP policy, as it stands, would freeze Australia out of the enrichment club and presents an awkward policy conflict between Australia and the US. Mr Spurgeon admitted the GNEP policy as envisaged presented an "unusual situation" in relation to Australia and Canada. "Any time you make a general rule you always find maybe it doesn't apply in all circumstances," he said. "The United States depends on, and wants to continue to have, a very close partnership and working relationship with Australia. "We end up with a little bit of an unusual situation here because the policy is really designed to try to help countries like Vietnam, for example, to be able to have the benefit of nuclear energy without needing that kind of enrichment plant and without needing a reprocessing facility."

Keen to assuage fears that Australia would not be dealt a bad hand in the program, Mr Spurgeon added that future discussions with Australia "comes down to the way in which we might jointly agree on a path forward for implementing the principles contained in GNEP". "But it is just that. It's a discussion. It's not a dictation in any manner of speaking. "We are pleased Australia is looking at nuclear energy and does want to be an active partner as we attempt to increase the use of nuclear energy worldwide in a responsible way." He stressed he was not in a position to make a definitive comment on what the administration's position would be on Australia enriching uranium, saying that was for the State Department to comment on. However, a spokesman for the State Department's Bureau of Non-proliferation declined to comment.

Source

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

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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

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New Report Challenges 'Oil Addiction' Warning

The "rational choice" for meeting America's growing energy needs is to expand domestic oil exploration and production, says a new report released by The National Center for Public Policy Research. According to Dana Joel Gattuso, senior fellow at the National Center and author of the study, alternative energies - such as wind, corn, solar and hydrogen - are not viable replacements for a growing fossil fuel based economy that President Bush has warned is "addicted to oil." The study, titled "Oil Addiction Fiction: Bush's 'Addiction' May Be Rational Choice," examines the relatively high production costs and low energy return of several alternative fuels:

* Ethanol: Gattuso cites scientists David Pimentel of Cornell University and Tad Patzek of The University of California - Berkley who found that ethanol, a corn-based fuel, requires 29 percent more fossil fuel energy to make than it yields in energy use. Moreover, current levels of domestic corn production could not meet both America's food and energy needs.

* Biomass: Fuels converted from such sources as wood chips and switchgrass are "prohibitively costly to produce, require massive amounts of land, and are still experimental," writes Gattuso.

* Wind and Solar Power: Despite 40 years of development, wind power accounts for only less than one percent of total electric power capacity; solar power accounts for only one-tenth of one percent of all electric capacity.

Not only are alternative energy sources speculative for meeting America's future energy needs, they also cost taxpayers millions of dollars in subsidies each year to compete. President Bush's FY 2007 budget includes $150 million in earmarks for biomass fuels, as well as a 78 percent increase in research and development subsidies for solar energy.

Gattuso argues that instead of squandering millions of taxpayer handouts on speculative fuels, Congress should instead focus its efforts on furthering domestic oil exploration and production. "Even with energy prices moving upward and Chicken Little-like speculations that we're tapping out supplies, oil is still abundant and relatively inexpensive compared to alternative sources of energy like ethanol, solar & wind and hydrogen technology," writes Gattuso.

Tapping into domestic energy sources such as a small section of the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) would likely yield some 10.4 billion barrels of oil, which would help bring down rising fuel prices. The U.S. imported roughly the same amount of oil from Saudi Arabia over a 25-year period. "The majority of Americans are calling for more oil production here on our own turf, and someone should be listening. President Bush might call it 'addiction;' others call it 'rational choice,'" says Gattuso.

This National Policy Analysis paper is available online here

Source






GREENIE NONSENSE HOLDS UP IMPROVED WINE

The U.S. wine industry has entered the world of genetic engineering as some vintners experiment with a strain of yeast designed to eliminate chemicals in red wine that are believed to trigger headaches, including migraines, in some people. Scientific research, much of it conducted at the University of California, Davis, has long played an important role in improving the quality of grapes and wines produced in California and around the world. But genetic modification -- in this case inserting two genes into the DNA of a yeast species -- marks a new threshold for the industry.

As a result, the new biotech yeast is getting a wary reception in a wine industry that sells itself on its artisan reputation and is anxious not to ruffle export markets touchy about genetically modified foods. Experts also say the new yeast alters the flavor of wine. "As an industry, we're definitely interested in research when it comes to genetic engineering. But I don't think we're prepared to look at genetically modified products yet," said Paul Dolan, a winemaker and chairman of the Wine Institute, the California industry's leading advocacy group.

Still, the new yeast offers a promising way around the wine-headache problem. About 13 percent of Americans suffer migraines, according to the National Headache Foundation. Migraine patients are commonly told to avoid red wine, said Marco Vespignani, a naturopathic doctor at the Institute for Restorative Health in Davis.

At least a few wines made with the so-called ML01 yeast already are reaching consumers this year, according to Jason Rodriguez, wine products specialist for American Tartaric Products Inc., the California distributor of the yeast. He declined to identify any specific brands, though, and the wines aren't required to carry a special label.

In Northern California and Europe, where genetically modified foods have sparked controversy and strict regulation, a move to the new yeast could simply be trading one headache for another. The growing of genetically modified crops has been banned by voters or county supervisors in Mendocino, Trinity, Marin and Santa Cruz counties. And in Europe, nearly all foods made with significant amounts of genetically modified ingredients must carry a label. That requirement has driven U.S. food companies to avoid the use of such ingredients in products exported to EU countries. U.S. regulations don't require labels detailing whether a food contains genetically modified ingredients.

Wary of backlash in sensitive export markets, Australia's wine industry -- a key international competitor with California -- in November took an official position against the use of the new genetically modified yeast. On Monday, the Wine Institute, which represents many, but not all, of California's wineries, did the same, issuing a statement declaring "that no genetically modified organisms be used in the production of California wine." The institute, however, does not have the authority to keep wineries from using the new yeast.

California wine exports totaled $625 million in 2005, according to the Wine Institute. Six of 10 California winemakers contacted for this story knew of the new yeast, but none said they were using it. Outside the United States, only Moldova, in Eastern Europe, allows its winemakers to use the new yeast. Regulators in several other winemaking countries are reviewing it. The yeast's manufacturer, Lesaffre Yeast Corp. of Milwaukee, did not return calls seeking comment.

Here's how the ML01 yeast works:

Making red wine from crushed grapes usually involves two fermentation steps. In the first, yeasts convert the sugar in crushed grapes into alcohol. In the second, bacteria transform harsh malic acid into relatively mild lactic acid. Headache-causing chemicals can appear in the second step. If the wrong type of bacteria grow, they produce chemicals called amines. These cause reactions, such as headaches, in some people.

The ML01 yeast is able to perform both the first and the second fermentation steps, meaning that bacteria aren't needed at all. Thus, there's little chance of producing the undesirable amines. To give the ML01 yeast the special ability to perform both types of fermentation, researchers inserted a gene from a bacteria species and a second gene from a wild yeast strain into the DNA of a strain of a commercial wine yeast.

Linda Bisson, a professor of viticulture and enology at UC Davis, said the biggest winemaking change in the use of ML01 is the elimination of bacteria from the fermentation process. The tradeoff: Those bacteria add new flavors and aromas to the wine. She said skilled winemakers can avoid creating the headache-causing amines without sacrificing flavor.

The scientist who developed the ML01 yeast, University of British Columbia Professor Hennie van Vuuren, said wines made with it have fared well in taste tests against wines made from the same grapes using conventional fermentation techniques. "The quality of the wine was found to be higher -- it was more full," he said from his home in British Columbia.

Researchers around the world have developed a variety of other genetically modified yeasts, but ML01 is the first on the market. Grapevines, too, have long been a target for genetic engineering, with researchers hoping to give the plants desirable traits such as resistance to fungus and disease. It likely will be years, however, before genetically modified grapes are grown on a production scale.

Van Vuuren spent 16 years developing ML01. He receives no royalties from its commercial sales, and said his motivation to develop the yeast grew from personal experience: Red wine gave him headaches, and he wanted to change that. "I didn't do it for a big corporation," he said. "I did it because I loved wine."

Source







Where's global warming when you need it?

Global warming should cause more avaporation off the oceans and hence more rainfall. But all we read of at the moment is the opposite v-- drought. There are severe water restrictions because of drought in Britain and Australia and now we read (below) of drought in China

YI Mudan sighs as her flock of sheep and goats push their way to the water troughs after a morning grazing on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. "We try to use our well water but there isn't enough," she says. "We have to ask for tankers to come from the town to make sure the animals have enough."

Drought is making itself felt across China. Horses, cattle and sheep are already beginning to starve in some parts of Inner Mongolia's grasslands. In central Sichuan province, China's grain basket, vast tracts of crops have withered. Across the country, more than 2.4million hectares have been ruined - an area 21 per cent larger than in previous years. Water levels along the mighty Yangtze, China's longest river, have dropped sharply, falling more than 10m in a matter of weeks. Where the river flows through the huge city of Chongqing, the water level is just 3.5m - its lowest in a century.

Across southwest China 17million people no longer have access to clean drinking water. Worst-hit is Suining, in northern Sichuan, where just 3.3cm of rain fell between June 21 and July31 - the smallest amount recorded since 1947. The only source for these poor farmers is water trucks sent by local officials. Animals are starting to die.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has called a special meeting and ordered officials in affected provinces to take urgent measures to reduce the impact on farmers. The ruling Communist Party has repeatedly voiced concerns about the livelihood of farmers, who make up about two-thirds of China's 1.3 billion people.

As economic reforms bring prosperity to residents of cities and coastal regions, the hundreds of millions who still make their living from the land are being left behind. The widening income gap has led to increasing discontent and incidents of unrest have been rising.

Yi farms her 1200 sheep and 200 goats across 690ha of grassland but she has rented additional land from neighbours because the deteriorating grass can no longer sustain her animals. "When my children were young, the grass was so long that the only way to find them was to stand on a wall and where I could see the grass moving was where they were playing," she says. "Now you could find a needle on the ground." Such natural disasters may no longer bring famine to China. But the spectre of farmers with barely enough to eat and dying animals is a huge anxiety for the nation's leaders in their attempt to avoid political instability.

Source






WWF Too Close To Tim Flannery & Government?

Post lifted from Jennifer Marohasy

Clive Hamilton, Executive Director of The Australian Institute, has written a rather pointed piece for today's Sydney Morning Herald suggesting that Tim Flannery, author of a recent book on global warming, is "a trump card" in Prime Minister John Howard's "nuclear power play". It also suggests that the government has bought off environment group the WWF:

"WWF (formerly the World Wide Fund for Nature) is the foremost of the friendly organisations. It is close to the Government, providing a stream of favourable commentary on its policies and bestowing several awards for the Government's environmental achievements, including three "Gift to the Earth" awards, which the Environment Minister, Ian Campbell, displays in his office. In return, the Government has been generous, sending tens of millions to the fund for various programs.

The force behind the emergence of the organisation as the leading group backing the Government's environment policy is the businessman Robert Purves. He has made a very large donation to WWF and is now its president.

Purves has drawn Tim Flannery into the orbit of conservative environmentalism by funding the preparation of Flannery's book on climate change, The Weather Makers. ... Purves is said to have spent $1 million promoting Flannery's book, including costly backlit billboards outside Qantas Club lounges around the country."

This is not the first time Clive Hamilton has thrown mud at WWF, his first shot was perhaps publication of a report titled 'Taming The Panda' just a couple of years ago.

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

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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

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