Warmist projection again

In an article under the title "The Role Harassment Plays in Climate Change Denial", Leftist organ "Mother Jones" complains about criticisms directed at Warmists, completely ignoring the torrent of criticisms and threats that Warmists pour out at climate skeptics -- not to mention the many attacks on the livelihood of skeptics.  To amplify their criticisms they do their best to link critics with Nazis.  Relevant excerpt below.

That is of course totally amusing:  The Nazi party really was the first Green party.  The end state desired by the current Greens and the Nazis is the same:  A return to a romanticized rural past.

And the whole point of Hitler's "Drang nach Osten" (invasion of Poland and Russia) was because Hitler feared food shortages so wanted Slavic farmlands to feed Germans.  And who is it today who are always predicting food shortages?

And, like the Nazis, the Greens never stop their attempts to make us all march in lockstep with them towards their addled goals.  Like the Nazis, they think they have the right to tell everyone else what to do. Nazis and Greens are both fundamentally authoritarian.  So, in the usual Leftist way, Ms Jones is projecting onto skeptics their own Green/Left characteristics.

For full details of how "Green" the Nazis were see "The Green Swastika: Environmentalism in the Third Reich", By William Walter Kay


But the right’s denial of climate change science nonetheless repeats many of the same patterns that have appeared in other extremist targets, from guns to immigration to abortion. These patterns include the appropriation of Nazi or anti-Semitic imagery, the demonization of funders and prominent advocates, and the distortion of the terms of the debate. Climate change has become another flashpoint for irrational, hateful, sometimes violent rhetoric, and even personal attacks on people who have risen to some prominence as scientists, funders, and advocates.

Stephan Lewandowsky, a University of Bristol cognitive scientist who studies science denial, notes how the virulently anti-government message that has long dominated climate denial discourse shares common themes with people who believe in conspiracy theories writ large. “Science as well as respect for others’ religions or ethnicity are considered establishment norms, just like truth-telling, and hence the people who support (and are incited by) Donald Trump are likely to reject all of those norms,” Lewandowsky tells Mother Jones, “which again would link science denial, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy theories as a cluster or related phenomena.”

The appropriation of particular labels, often involving Nazis, has also appeared in environmental debates. Self-described climate change skeptics have rejected being called “deniers,” arguing, as the conservative think tank figure and Trump EPA transition official Myron Ebell has, that the label is meant to tie“some people to Holocaust denial.” But the skeptic side has deployed an even more direct appropriation of Holocaust imagery.

In 2014, University of Alabama-Huntsville meteorologist Roy Spencer suggested on his blog that the best defense against the label “denier” would be to call those who were concerned with rising temperatures “global warming Nazis.” He even used an image of a swatsika [sic] on the post to illustrate his point, sparking a flurry of news coverage. His suggestion drew condemnation from the Anti Defamation League Southeast chapter.

[Read Roy Spencer's reply to that here]

SOURCE





Californians pay the price of Greenie interference with professional forest management

California Fires Caused by Environmentalists, Not Climate Change

A terrifying 'firenado' has been seen swirling in the scorched debris of a fire ravaged California.

The apocalyptic scenes showed a towering inferno of fire twisting through the air as charred cars and blackened trees surround it in Butte County., California.

Areas of northern and southern California continue to be evacuated as the fiery whirlwind of the the Camp Fire struck today.

Butte County Sheriff received reports of multiple fatalities, but officials are trying to confirm those reports, authorities told ABC News.

In video footage posted on line the tower of fire can be seen appearing from behind burnt trees near a long empty road covered in falling ash.

A 'firenado' whirl, also commonly known as a fire devil, fire tornado, fire swirl, or a fire twister, is a whirlwind induced by a fire and often made up of flame from a brush fire.

In Butte County, about 80 miles north of Sacramento, has seen strong winds hamper efforts by aircraft to drop retardant on the fast-moving fire that largely destroyed Paradise and moved into the eastern side of Chico this morning, a city with a population of around 90,000.

The blaze, which has grown to 20,000 acres in northern California, has raged since yesterday evening. 

In less than 24 hours, the Camp Fire had torched over 31 square miles, or 20,000 acres, turning escape routes around the town of Paradise into tunnels of fire as the entire community of 27,000 residents were ordered to evacuate.

Cal Fire said the fire was only five per cent contained and had consumed 70,000 acres.

On Thursday, as flames engulfed Paradise, frantic residents racing to safety plunged into the thick smoke that darkened the daytime sky and made driving difficult.

More than 1,000 buildings face being damaged by the fast-moving blaze, Butte County Cal Fire Chief Darren Read said in the press conference.

One sheriff's deputy described his surroundings as 'blackout conditions' as others detailed roads that were 'completely blocked' due to roaring flames.

Police officer Mark Bass, who lives in the hard-hit town of Paradise and works in neighboring Chico, said: 'We were surrounded by fire, we were driving through fire on each side of the road.

'He evacuated his family and then returned to the fire to help rescue several disabled residents, including a man trying to carry his bedridden wife to safety.

'It was just a wall of fire on each side of us, and we could hardly see the road in front of us.'

Southern California was also under siege from raging wildfires a two separate blazes encroached on Thousand Oaks, the scene of Wednesday night's mass shooting, and upmarket Calabasas, home to celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, who was forced to evacuate her home.

Around 75,000 homes have been placed under emergency evacuation orders, meaning more than 100,000 homes in danger across the state.

The Los Angeles Police Department also issued a citywide tactical alert for the fire, allowing its units to assist in handling the fire.

SOURCE




Why will global warming kill only the cute animals?

Only loathsome species will flourish, according to certain studies. Why? Because 'rat explosion' is more alarming than 'two degrees'

Rats! It’s global warming again. Can’t we get a break? No, literally. Not from the warming part. It’s actually quite chilly outside and there hasn’t been any measurable planetary warming since 1999.

Monday’s Post headline actually said “Explosion of rats feared as climate warms.” So the good news is rats aren’t increasing any more than temperature. The bad news is a further increase in passive-voice predictions of doom.

It’s openly a story about hype not science

Before the rats reach your face I’d like to note that this “news” story is remarkable for having the plumbing on the outside. It starts “Scientists have shown that the likely 2 degrees of global warming to come this century will be extremely dangerous, but, you know, ‘2 degrees’ is hardly a phrase from horror films. How about ‘rat explosion?’ ”

Exactly. It’s openly a story about hype not science. “The physics of climate change doesn’t have the same fear factor as the biology.” So cue the Fu Manchu-style mandibles, mould and plague because “it’s the creatures multiplying in outbreaks and infestations that generate horror.”

It’s also old news. I’ve collected quite the file of creepy-crawly global-warming scare stories over the years including “super-sized, extra-itchy poison ivy” (Ottawa Citizen 2006), “tropical and potentially lethal fungus” (Globe and Mail 2007), venomous jellyfish the size of refrigerators (MSNBC 2009), mass starvation and the extinction of humanity (Globe and Mail 2009), bigger and more frequent kidney stones (Ottawa Citizen 2008), soggy pork chops (Globe and Mail 2009), asthma, allergies and runny noses (NBC 2015) and the conflict in Darfur (Ottawa Citizen 2007). Not to mention drought and flooding and the migration of France’s fabled wine industry to … um… Scotland (all Ottawa Citizen 2007), where they’ll be pairing a fine ruby Loch Ness with rat haggis I suppose. Och aye mon.

I could go on and on. But they already did. And don’t go reading these stories and thinking they offer evidence, or rather speculation, that warmth benefits life generally.

Far from it. Virtually none of these stories has anything cute or cuddly flourishing. Unless you count stray cats in Toronto (National Post 2007). Instead it’s a strangely un-PC combination of lookism and speciesism. So if you want to be a climate alarmist without all that tedious mucking about with facts, here’s how.

Make a collage of many living things. Circle everything you’d like to see, up close or from a distance, like coral reefs or polar bears. Now predict their catastrophic decline if it gets two degrees warmer. (Don’t worry about them having somehow staggered through the Holocene Climatic Optimum. Pretend it never happened and hope it’s gone in the morning.)

If you want to be a climate alarmist without all that tedious mucking about with facts, here’s how

Now circle all the really hideous stuff. Eyes on stalks, pointy noses, smelly, slimy. Predict a huge increase. Chocolate? Gone. (Globe and Mail 2012.) Diarrhea-inducing vibrio bacteria? Coming soon to an intestine near you. (MSNBC 2011.) Zika, or crabs swarming beaches? Oh yeah. (NBC 2016.) Insomnia, insanity and suicide? You bet. (Washington Post 2017, National Post 2018, Globe and Mail 2018.) Beer? Going going … (Guardian 2018.)

Friends, scientists, countrypersons, lend me your ears before some warmth-surfing pest chews them off. Even if a rapidly warming Earth were bad for man and beast, and our fault, the initial phases, with temperatures well within the range since the last glaciation ended 12,000 years back, can’t bring only bad consequences. No wind is that ill.

Nor is it plausible that every single new study says it’s worse than scientists thought. (Especially if “the science is settled”). If it were real science somebody would occasionally discover there’s a bit more time, climate somewhere will improve in the short run, some species that doesn’t have you fumbling for the Raid will flourish briefly. But no.

Even if climate change is going to have wiped out “sea spiders as large as a dinner plate” (Ottawa Citizen 2002) it’s the tragic loss of a unique species. But mostly it’s bumble bees (NBC 2015) or the coelacanth (Ottawa Citizen 2001), which cruised through the Permian-Triassic and Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinctions but now dangles by a rhetorical thread. Oh, and the emperor penguin gets it too (NBC 2014). Plus plankton (Globe and Mail 2000). And walruses (NBC 2014).
 
As for the rats, one pregnant female will send 15,000 loathsome offspring a year straight to your suburb. None of their natural enemies will flourish. And “Rats are just the beginning … populations of dangerous crop-eating insects are likely to explode … Similar horrors lurk offshore … a population explosion of purple sea urchins — ‘cockroaches of the ocean’ — is choking out other denizens of Pacific kelp forests … we’re all sharing this warming planet, and at the very least surely we can unite against a future filled with rats.”

Or one filled with imaginary horrors? No? Rats.

SOURCE




Fraudulent science behind radiation regulations

Toxicology scientist documents fraud in Nobel award for “Linear No Threshold” toxicity model

Paul Driessen and Dr. Jay Lehr

The 2018 elections underscore the need for bipartisan efforts to address scientific frauds that promote and justify ever more stringent regulations – often to the great detriment of people, patients and society.

In fact, world-renowned toxicology expert Dr. Edward Calabrese has now discovered and documented fraud behind the award of the 1946 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. The prize was given to Hermann Muller for his claimed discovery that even small or infinitesimal amounts of radiation can cause cancer. It is the ridiculous assertion that there is no threshold below which any kind of radiation is safe.

By contrast, toxicologists have long used actual experiments to establish dose response models and determine what exposure to various kinds of radiation (or chemicals) actually pose cancer (or other) risks for humans.

Low doses are generally benign, they have found. In many cases, low doses even help animals and humans ward off disease, safeguard bodies against certain chemicals or diseases, or actually cure cancer and other diseases. Higher doses can cause problems, and therefore must be calculated and regulated.

For example, via a process called hormesis, low levels of radon exposure can protect against cancer; 80 milligrams of aspirin are thought to prevent strokes; and trace amounts of selenium help our bodies counteract the harmful effects of mercury in our blood.

However, despite this evidence, government agencies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have followed Muller’s straight-line Linear No Threshold (LNT) model for decades. Besides giving rise to what many say are overly restrictive and even unnecessary regulations, the LNT model has actually harmed patients, by greatly precluding the use of radiation in curative medicine.

But now University of Massachusetts at Amherst health sciences professor Calabrese has documented LNT fraud – through an exhaustive review of communications that began July 22, 1927 in the journal Science, where Muller first put forth the claim that any amount of radiation causes cancer. Calabrese lays out his findings in an October 2018 analysis in the Philosophy, Ethics and Humanities in Medicine journal.

Calabrese has spent years investigating Muller’s claims. His story unfolds like a detective novel with all the characters who played intentional or inadvertent roles in the deception indicted by their written and published communications 90 years ago. There are 34 documents in all.

They show that, without any supporting scientific data or peer review, Muller presented his claims at the Fifth International Genetics Congress in September 1927, where he described how he had supposedly induced hundreds of gene mutations by bombarding common fruit flies (Drosophila) with x-rays.

Muller’s closest friend and colleague, William Rice Institute biologist Edgar Altenburg, told Muller his experiment had not caused any mutations. Instead, they created changes by eliminating pieces of the flies’ chromosomes, enabling the creation of inheritable traits or progeny, but no mutations whatever.

As early as 1929, in a paper in the Journal of Genetics, geneticist Barbara McClintock demonstrated that Altenburg’s criticism of Muller was correct. She went on to win the 1983 Nobel Prize for her other work in genetics.

However, Muller repeatedly brushed off his friend’s advisories about his error and McClintock’s proof that his hypothesis was incorrect. The recriminations may have led to Muller’s failed suicide attempt in 1932. His suicide note was directed to Altenburg, rather than his family, and Altenburg never challenged Muller again. It appears that loyalty to a close friend may have overwhelmed his responsibility to science, medicine and humanity.

The scientific community was enthralled by Muller’s claims and the publicity it received. Scientists worldwide quickly and uncritically came to believe that Muller actually had produced gene mutations and was advancing one of the most significant questions confronting biology. His lack of data never slowed down the wave of excitement.

Muller resumed his duplicity quite strongly throughout the years leading to his Nobel Prize lecture on December 12, 1946. There he deceived the audience by arguing that there was no possibility of a threshold or harmless dose response for radiation-induced mutations. The deceit was apparently deliberate.

Calabrese documents that Muller had seen data that supported the “threshold or harmless” conclusion. It came from two scientists, Ernst Caspari and Curt Stern, who worked at the University of Rochester and released their findings one month prior to Muller’s Nobel Lecture. Muller ignored their findings and promoted his deception to support his long-held commitment to his Linear No Threshold claim, which is commonly referred to as the “LNT dose response for mutation and cancer risks.”

Muller’s story appears to be one of unbridled ambition, self-serving manipulation, a scientific community that failed to demand accountability, and a Nobel Prize committee that inadequately evaluated the findings which lead to the award. The implications of these actions have been incredibly damaging.

They resulted in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences adopting the LNT in 1956 for all regulatory programs relating to radiation. This convention was subsequently adopted worldwide.

The deceptions continue to justify over-regulation and deprive patients of potential cures, without any acknowledgement or change by the scientific community or government regulatory agencies.

Incredibly, modern nucleotide analysis methods have repeated Muller’s experiments with x-ray bombardments – and shown conclusively that Muller’s alterations to fruit flies resulted in modest to extraordinarily large chromosomal deletions, rather than point mutations.

In addition, the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster was exacerbated by a commitment to the LNT, which persuaded the Japanese government to mandate that people be moved unnecessarily miles from their homes. That led to an estimated 2,200 premature elderly deaths due to stress.

Not a single radiation illness or death occurred, because there was never enough radiation lasting long enough in the prevailing winds to cause either. But the Fukushima scare lasted for years afterward.

Most amazing and distressing of all, the deceptions have led to the rejection of low-dose radiation (LDR) treatments. Underscoring how devastating this can be for patients, Dr. Kiyohiko Sakamoto gave himself total-body LDR treatments for his systemic stage IV colon cancer. Thus far, he is a 20+ year survivor!

In his landmark paper, Calabrese says, regardless of Muller’s deceit, “the most significant criticisms and concerns should be directed to the scientific and regulatory communities, such as U.S. EPA, that have uncritically adopted and sustained Muller’s findings as the foundation for cancer risk assessment.”

They have permitted this process to be dominated by ideological perspectives that must end if healthcare is to be optimized by using low dose radiation to arrest or cure cancers, and prevent needless deaths.

The reasons behind this travesty of science and medicine are simple. First, prominent scientists do not like to be found incorrect on major issues. Second, an activist anti-nuclear population views all radiation as evil, whether that view is rational, irrational or actually harmful to people’s health and welfare.

Hopefully, a “refreshed” House of Representatives and stronger Republican Senate will team up with the White House to correct an egregious wrong that has negatively impacted the health of cancer victims and others who most need advanced radiation treatments that have too long been rendered unavailable.

Any LNT changes will likely be resisted by environmental and health activists and others committed to the status quo. However, Congress, EPA, the Food and Drug Administration, and other regulatory bodies worldwide need to reexamine and revise existing LNT rules. Countless lives hang in the balance.

Via email




Australia: Isaac Plains coalmine ramps up production

Stanmore Coal has secured additional long-term port capacity at Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal, Mackay, paving the way to step up production at its Isaac Plains mine near Moranbah.

The company said the extra capacity added certainty for the company to pursue options to take its coal handling and preparation plant to its nameplate capacity of 3.5Mtpa ROM.

In announcement to the ASX, it said the Isaac Plains complex’s reserves and resources were sufficient to allow it to ramp up production to match that capacity.

It is increasing its production guidance for the 2019 financial year from 1.8Mtpa to 2Mtpa.

SOURCE

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