An example of a false premise leading to a foolish conclusiuon

More hayfever is coming! Caused by global warming, of course! The logic leading to that conclusion below is impeccable.  But a basic premise is faulty.  Global warming, feeble as it was, has now stopped completely.  So unless something changes, there will be NO increase of hayfever due to climate events.  Parthenium weed, another North American import, causes a lot of allergic reactions in Australia.  No doubt its spread will be blamed on global warming too

Hay fever misery to increase with global warming: Invasive ragweed to spread pollen further due to climate change.  Climate change could help a notorious invasive weed known to trigger severe allergy attacks to spread and bring misery to hay fever sufferers, experts have warned.

Ragweed, also known as Ambrosia artemisiifolia, is native to North America but since the 1960s has been spreading rapidly across warmer parts of Europe.

It is still rare in the UK, but researchers predict by 2050 it could be scattering pollen throughout much of Britain and northern Europe.  Pollen from the plant not only induces severe allergic reactions but also extends the hay fever season from summer to autumn.

Last year, researchers from the University of Leicester recorded airborne ragweed pollen levels in the East Midlands high enough to cause significant hay fever attacks.

Globally, average surface temperatures have increased by about 0.7°C over the past 100 years, leading to earlier plant growth in many regions.

The trend towards warming has been more pronounced in winter months, resulting in more changes in the timing of spring pollen seasons than those of summer and autumn.

The weed is a far more potent allergy trigger than grass and experts fear it could pose a serious public health problem if it becomes established.

Scientists writing in the journal Nature Climate Change found that *predicted* levels of global warming were likely to create conditions favourable to ragweed across large areas of northern Europe, including the UK.

They concluded: 'Climate change and ragweed seed dispersal in current and future suitable areas will increase airborne pollen concentrations, which may consequently heighten the incidence and prevalence of ragweed allergy.'

The researchers, led by Dr Lynda Hamaoui-Laguel, from the Laboratory of the Sciences of Climate and the Environment in Gif sur Yvette, France, ran computer simulations that forecast a four-fold increase in European ragweed pollen concentrations by 2050.

'Substantial increases' in pollen load were likely to occur in areas such as north-central Europe, northern France and southern England, where ragweed is rare today.

Ragweed is a prolific pollen producer - one plant is capable of generating up to a billion pollen grains per season.  Its wind-blown pollen can travel hundreds of miles and is also resilient enough to survive through a mild winter.

According to the research, depending on the speed of dispersal, pollen levels in some locations could rise as much as 12 times.

The northern spread of ragweed was expected regardless of whether a high or moderate level of global warming occurred.

The scientists added: 'Once established, ragweed is difficult to eradicate because of its long-lived seed, its capacity to re-sprout after cutting and its propensity to evolve resistance to herbicides.

'Our results indicate that controlling the current European ragweed invasion will become more difficult in the future as the environment will be more favourable for ragweed growth and spread, highlighting the need for the development of effective and regionally coordinated eradication programmes.'

Hay fever is known to affect between 10 and 30 per cent of the population worldwide and experts have predicted there could be around 31.8 million hay fever sufferers in the UK by 2030.

In the US, roughly 7.8 per cent of people 18 and over in the US have hay fever.

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Something Greenies have taken away

Among the better things in life listed below is a well-pressured shower.  It's third on the list of pleasures. But what the Devil is a a "well-pressured shower"?  It would be a puzzle to me if I had not been in England at various times.  The thin piss of water they call a shower there is a shock to Australians, who like a good downpour on themselves.  Greenies are trying to bring it in here too with regulations about what can be fitted to new-build houses but the average Australian male is handyman enough to drill more holes in the low volume fitting or throw it away and get a proper one from the hardware store.  But for dutiful or tyrannized souls, their showers are not as satisfying as they once were

Getting into bed after a long journey, a well-pressured shower and freshly baked bread: Life's most satisfying everyday pleasures revealed

They say the best things in life are free.  And it turns out many people agree, if a recent Reddit thread revealing life's most simple pleasures is anything to go by.

User curlbenchsquater asked the question to people all over the world, and the poll revealed that back scratches, getting goosebumps from music and causing people to laugh all ranked highly on the list.

Unsurprisingly, many pleasures that came out top on the list were ones that resulted in a sense of physical relief after solving annoyances or irritations.

These included extracting a popcorn kernel lodged in the teeth, back and head scratches, taking bras off at the end of a long day, and also the satisfying first sip of a drink when thirsty.

One user even went so far as to embellish by adding vivid detail to the scenario, stating: 'It's hot outside and the only thing on your mind is an ice cold glass of water. And once you get that sip...'

Several of the simple pleasures were directly linked with creating comfortable or familiar situations.

Falling asleep while it's raining outside came out as one of the top simple pleasures, as did getting in your own bed after a long journey.

Several users agreed on putting on clothes straight out of the tumble dryer, with many citing that the level of warmth was comforting.

Other pleasures that Reddit users agreed on were ones that involved a certain sense of convenience, with opening a book on the right page ranking surprisingly high.

Many users praised the feeling of waking up and anticipating going to work, but instead experiencing the realisation that it's actually the weekend.

Others involved a sense of personal self-achievement, with many agreeing that making someone laugh - in particular a person that they looked up to - made them happy.

Another was merely starting a task and completing it, with one user adding: 'The task or job doesn't have to be sizeable necessarily, but when you complete something such as mowing your lawn of cleaning all of your dirty dishes, it feels good.'

But for others, just savouring their health was simple pleasure enough.

One user wrote: 'It's only when I get sick do I realize how bad I miss the days when I was you know.. not sick.

And another added: 'When you're sick but your nose starts to clear up and you can finally breathe properly.'

LIFE'S SIMPLEST SMALL PLEASURES -- the list

Falling asleep while it's raining outside
Back or head scratches
A shower with good water pressure
Lying in your own bed after a long journey
Fresh baked bread and good quality butter
The first sip of a drink when you're thirsty
Getting goosebumps from a song
Causing someone to laugh that you admire or look up to
Taking your bra off at the end of the day
Starting a task and finishing it
Getting a popcorn kernel out of your teeth
Waking up for work, only to realise it's Saturday
Opening a book on the page you need to be on
Sitting by a fire
Putting on clothes straight out of the dryer

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Fred is close to becoming a "Slayer"

Most climate skeptics accept that heat radiation bouncing off atmospheric CO2 molecules could cause some terrestrial warming but argue that the warming concerned is trivial and of no importance to anything.  The Slayers however reject totally any theory of bouncing heat and say that the whole CO2 story is completely illogical.  One of the Slayers below say Fred Singer has got one foot in the Slayer camp.  The Slayer argument is set out here

Converging on the Truth: Atmospheric and space physicist Fred Singer (pictured) published an article in October of 2014 where he concluded that his position is becoming so skeptical of climate sensitivity claims that he is no longer in agreement with the bulk of the skeptical majority. Fred Singer

What Singer originally said in his summary in his article where he discussed the possibility of climate sensitivity to CO2 being close to zero was:

“I should note that I am somewhat out of step here with my fellow skeptics. Few of them would agree with me that the climate sensitivity (CS) is indeed close to zero. I will have to publish the analyses to prove my point and try to convince them. Of course, nothing, no set of facts, will ever convince the confirmed climate alarmists.”

A climate sensitivity (CS) close to zero flies in the face of not only the alarmist movement, but the generally accepted theory underlying CO2 climate alarm as well – the radiative greenhouse effect.  And so this is a difficult position to be in because some scientists, such as Singer, are discovering results which are inconsistent with the general expectations.

However, if the radiative greenhouse effect is itself flawed or based on a false underlying ontology, then a result of CS close to zero is exactly what one would expect as a possible consequence.  A CS close to zero falls right into the lap of what the “Slayers” and Principia Scientific International have been saying about the radiative greenhouse effect for years.

The radiative greenhouse effect is indeed based on a false, non-ontological model of the physical and energetic properties of the terrestrial system.  Climate sensitivity is close to zero because it is zero, within the context of the radiative greenhouse effect which originates this concept of climate sensitivity to CO2 in the first place.

My last post is a good starting point, and you can also read the “Fraud of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect” series (scroll down to the first post if you like), to learn more.

Read more by Joseph Postma at climateofsophistry.com

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Former IPCC Researcher Questions Fossil Fuel Claims

Says no significant warming for EIGHT THOUSAND years

In a new study, physicist Philip J. Lloyd, a former researcher for the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC), suggests global warming can’t necessarily be blamed entirely on greenhouse gases because 20 and 21st century temperature recordings lie within the standard deviation of natural warming.

“Dr. Philip Lloyd, a South Africa-based physicist and climate researcher, examined ice core-based temperature data going back 8,000 years to gain perspective on the magnitude of global temperature changes over the 20th Century. What Lloyd found was that the standard deviation of the temperature over the last 8,000 years was about 0.98 degrees Celsius — higher than the 0.85 degrees climate scientists say the world has warmed over the last century.”

According to Lloyd, “This suggests that while some portion of the temperature change observed in the 20th century was probably caused by greenhouse gases, there is a strong likelihood that the major portion was due to natural variations.”

Kudos to Lloyd for, if nothing else, exercising an open mind. On the other hand, how much are his friends over at the IPCC willing to listen? Even though carbon dioxide levels continue to increase, having just recently surpassed 400 ppm, temperatures haven’t responded in tandem. In fact, temperatures have been flat for nearly 18 and a half years. Which begs the question that the UN still can’t rationally explain: Why are humans suddenly at fault?

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18 spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions around first Earth Day 1970, expect more

In the May 2000 issue of Reason Magazine, award-winning science correspondent Ronald Bailey wrote an excellent article titled “Earth Day, Then and Now” to provide some historical perspective on the 30th anniversary of Earth Day. sky is falling

In that article, Bailey noted that around the time of the first Earth Day, and in the years following, there was a “torrent of apocalyptic predictions” and many of those predictions were featured in his Reason article. Well, it’s now the 45th anniversary of  Earth Day, and a good time to ask the question again that Bailey asked 15 years ago: How accurate were the predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970?

The answer: “The prophets of doom were not simply wrong, but spectacularly wrong,” according to Bailey. Here are 18 examples of the spectacularly wrong predictions made around 1970 when the “green holy day” (aka Earth Day) started:

1. Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

2. “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” wrote Washington University biologist Barry Commoner in the Earth Day issue of the scholarly journal Environment.

3. The day after the first Earth Day, the New York Times editorial page warned, “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”

4. “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich confidently declared in the April 1970 Mademoiselle. “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”

5. “Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born,” wrote Paul Ehrlich in a 1969 essay titled “Eco-Catastrophe! “By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”

6. Ehrlich sketched out his most alarmist scenario for the 1970 Earth Day issue of The Progressive, assuring readers that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the “Great Die-Off.”

7. “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” declared Denis Hayes, the chief organizer for Earth Day, in the Spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness.

8. Peter Gunter, a North Texas State University professor, wrote in 1970, “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”

9. In January 1970, Life reported, “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”

10. Ecologist Kenneth Watt told Time that, “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”

11. Barry Commoner predicted that decaying organic pollutants would use up all of the oxygen in America’s rivers, causing freshwater fish to suffocate.

12. Paul Ehrlich chimed in, predicting in his 1970 that “air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” Ehrlich sketched a scenario in which 200,000 Americans would die in 1973 during “smog disasters” in New York and Los Angeles.

13. Paul Ehrlich warned in the May 1970 issue of Audubon that DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons “may have substantially reduced the life expectancy of people born since 1945.” Ehrlich warned that Americans born since 1946…now had a life expectancy of only 49 years, and he predicted that if current patterns continued this expectancy would reach 42 years by 1980, when it might level out.

14. Ecologist Kenneth Watt declared, “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.'”

15. Harrison Brown, a scientist at the National Academy of Sciences, published a chart in Scientific American that looked at metal reserves and estimated the humanity would totally run out of copper shortly after 2000. Lead, zinc, tin, gold, and silver would be gone before 1990.

16. Sen. Gaylord Nelson wrote in Look that, “Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”

17. In 1975, Paul Ehrlich predicted that “since more than nine-tenths of the original tropical rainforests will be removed in most areas within the next 30 years or so, it is expected that half of the organisms in these areas will vanish with it.”

18. Kenneth Watt warned about a pending Ice Age in a speech. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,” he declared. “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”

MP: Let’s keep those spectacularly wrong predictions from the first Earth Day 1970 in mind when we’re bombarded  with media hype, and claims like this from the official Earth Day website:

     "Scientists warn us that climate change could accelerate beyond our control, threatening our survival and everything we love. We call on you to keep global temperature rise under the unacceptably dangerous level of 2 degrees C, by phasing out carbon pollution to zero. To achieve this, you must urgently forge realistic global, national and local agreements, to rapidly shift our societies and economies to 100% clean energy by 2050. Do this fairly, with support to the most vulnerable among us. Our world is worth saving and now is our moment to act. But to change everything, we need everyone. Join us."

Finally, think about this question, posed by Ronald Bailey in 2000: What will Earth look like when Earth Day 60 rolls around in 2030? Bailey predicts a much cleaner, and much richer future world, with less hunger and malnutrition, less poverty, and longer life expectancy, and with lower mineral and metal prices. But he makes one final prediction about Earth Day 2030: “There will be a disproportionately influential group of doomsters predicting that the future–and the present–never looked so bleak.” In other words, the hype, hysteria and spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions will continue, promoted by the “environmental grievance hustlers.”

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Greenie professor is a Fascist beast

Control, control, control is what he is on about. Says America’s Founding Document Outmoded.  Too much liberty in it

Top Vatican adviser Jeffrey Sachs says that when Pope Francis visits the United States in September, he will directly challenge the “American idea” of God-given rights embodied in the Declaration of Independence.

Sachs, a special advisor to the United Nations and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is a media superstar who can always be counted on to pontificate endlessly on such topics as income inequality and global health. This time, writing in a Catholic publication, he may have gone off his rocker, revealing the real global game plan.

The United States, Sachs writes in the Jesuit publication, America, is “a society in thrall” to the idea of unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But the “urgent core of Francis’ message” will be to challenge this “American idea” by “proclaiming that the path to happiness lies not solely or mainly through the defense of rights but through the exercise of virtues, most notably justice and charity.”

In these extraordinary comments, which constitute a frontal assault on the American idea of freedom and national sovereignty, Sachs has made it clear that he hopes to enlist the Vatican in a global campaign to increase the power of global or foreign-dominated organizations and movements.

Sachs takes aim at the phrase, which comes from America’s founding document, the United States Declaration of Independence, that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

These rights sound good, Sachs writes, but they’re not enough to guarantee the outcome the global elites have devised for us. Global government, he suggests, must make us live our lives according to international standards of development.

“In the United States,” Sachs writes, “we learn that the route to happiness lies in the rights of the individual. By throwing off the yoke of King George III, by unleashing the individual pursuit of happiness, early Americans believed they would achieve that happiness. Most important, they believed that they would find happiness as individuals, each endowed by the creator with individual rights.”

While he says there is some “grandeur in this idea,” such rights “are only part of the story, only one facet of our humanity.”

The Sachs view is that global organizations such as the U.N. must dictate the course of nations and individual rights must be sacrificed for the greater good. One aspect of this unfolding plan, as outlined in the Sachs book, The End of Poverty, involves extracting billions of dollars from the American people through global taxes.

“We will need, in the end, to put real resources in support of our hopes,” he wrote. “A global tax on carbon-emitting fossil fuels might be the way to begin. Even a very small tax, less than that which is needed to correct humanity’s climate-deforming overuse of fossil fuels, would finance a greatly enhanced supply of global public goods.” Sachs has estimated the price tag for the U.S. at $845 billion.

In preparation for this direct assault on our rights, the American nation-state, and our founding document, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon told a Catholic Caritas International conference in Rome on May 12 that climate change is “the defining challenge of our time,” and that the solution lies in recognizing that “ humankind is part of nature, not separate or above.”

The pope’s expected encyclical on climate change is supposed to help mobilize the governments of the world in this crusade.

But a prestigious group of scholars, churchmen, scientists, economists and policy experts has issued a detailed rebuttal, entitled, “An Open Letter to Pope Francis on Climate Change,” pointing out that the Bible tells man to have dominion over the earth.

“Good climate policy must recognize human exceptionalism, the God-given call for human persons to ‘have dominion’ in the natural world (Genesis 1:28), and the need to protect the poor from harm, including actions that hinder their ascent out of poverty,” the letter to Pope Francis states.

Released by a group called the Cornwall Alliance, the letter urges the Vatican to consider the evidence that climate change is largely natural, that the human contribution is comparatively small and not dangerous, and that attempting to mitigate the human contribution by reducing CO2 emissions “would cause more harm than good, especially to the world’s poor.”

The Heartland Institute held a news conference on April 27 at the Hotel Columbus in Rome, to warn the Vatican against embracing the globalist agenda of the climate change movement. The group is hosting the 10th International Conference on Climate Change in Washington, D.C. on June 11-12.

However, it appears as if the Vatican has been captured by the globalist forces associated with Sachs and the United Nations.

Voice of the Family, a group representing pro-life and pro-family Catholic organizations from around the world, has taken issue not only with the Vatican’s involvement with Sachs but with Ban Ki Moon, describing the two as “noted advocates of abortion who operate at the highest levels of the United Nations.” Sachs has been described as “arguably the world’s foremost proponent of population control,” including abortion.

Voice of the Family charges that environmental issues such as climate change have become “an umbrella to cover a wide spectrum of attacks on human life and the family.”

Although Sachs likes to claim he was an adviser to Pope John Paul II, the noted anti-communist and pro-life pontiff, Sachs simply served as a member of a group of economists invited to confer with the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace in advance of the release of a papal document.

In fact, Pope John Paul II had worked closely with the Reagan administration in opposition to communism and the global population control movement. He once complained that a U.N. conference on population issues was designed to “destroy the family” and was the “snare of the devil.”

Pope Francis, however, seems to have embraced the very movements opposed by John Paul II.

Sachs, who has emerged as a very influential Vatican adviser, recently tweeted that he was “thrilled” to be at the Vatican “discussing moral dimensions of climate change and sustainable development.” The occasion was a Vatican workshop on global warming on April 28, 2015, sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences of the Roman Catholic Church. Sachs was a featured speaker.

The plan going forward involves the launching of what are called “Sustainable Development Goals,” as envisioned by a Sustainable Development Solutions Network run by none other than Jeffrey Sachs.

“The Network has proposed draft Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which contain provisions that are radically antagonistic to the right to life from conception to natural death, to the rights and dignity of the family and to the rights of parents as the primary educators of their children,” states the group Voice of the Family.

In July, a Financing for Development conference will be held, in order to develop various global tax proposals, followed by a conference in Paris in December to complete a new climate change agreement.

Before that December conference, however, Sachs says the pope will call on the world at the United Nations to join the crusade for a New World Order.

Sachs says, “Pope Francis will come to the United States and the United Nations in New York on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, and at the moment when the world’s 193 governments are resolved to take a step in solidarity toward a better world. On Sept. 25, Pope Francis will speak to the world leaders—most likely the largest number of assembled heads of state and government in history—as these leaders deliberate to adopt new Sustainable Development Goals for the coming generation. These goals will be a new worldwide commitment to build a world that aims to harmonize the pursuit of economic prosperity with the commitments to social inclusion and environmental sustainability.”

Rather than emphasize the absolute need for safeguarding individual rights in the face of government overreach and power, Sachs writes that the Gospel teachings of humility, love and justice, “like the teachings of Aristotle, Buddha and Confucius,” can take us on a “path to happiness through compassion” and “become our guideposts back to safety.”

Writing elsewhere in the new issue of America, Christiana Z. Peppard, an assistant professor of theology, science and ethics at Fordham University, writes about the “planetary pope,” saying, “What is really at stake in the collective response to the pope’s encyclical is not, ultimately, whether our treasured notions of theology, science, reality or development can accommodate moral imperatives. The real question is whether we are brave enough and willing to try.”

The plan is quite simple: world government through global taxes, with a religious face to bring it about.

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