NUCLEAR RADIATION: ANOTHER GREEN SCARE IN DOUBT
Hormesis on the road to being discovered yet again. Even exposure to a nuclear blast has bad effects only on those close to the epicenter
The more recent meltdown at the reactor in Chernobyl in 1986 reminded the world of the dangers of the atom. The incident was referred to as "nuclear genocide," and the press wrote of "forests stained red" and of deformed insects. The public was bombarded with images of Soviet cleanup crews wearing protective suits, bald-headed children with cancer and the members of cement crews who lost their lives in an attempt to seal off the cracked reactor with a concrete plug. Fifteen years after the reactor accident, the German newsmagazine Focus concluded that Chernobyl was responsible for "500,000" deaths.
Was all this just doomsday folklore? There is no doubt that large sections of the countryside were contaminated by the accident in the Ukraine. In the ensuing decades, up to 4,000 cleanup workers and residents of the more highly contaminated areas died of the long-term consequences of radiation exposure. But the six-figure death counts that opponents of nuclear power once cited are simply nonsense. In most cases, they were derived from vague "extrapolations" based on the hearsay reported by Russian dissidents. But such horror stories have remained part of the nuclear narrative to this day.
In fact, contemporaries who reported on the Chernobyl incident should have known better. Even in the 1980s, radiobiologists and radiation physicists considered the media's doomsday reports to be exaggerated.
And their suspicions have become a virtual certainty today. Groups of researchers have set up shop at all of the sites of nuclear accidents or major nuclear contamination. They work at Hanford (where the United States began producing plutonium in 1944), they conduct studies in the English town of Sellafield (where a contaminated cloud escaped from the chimney in 1957), and they study the fates of former East German uranium mineworkers in the states of Saxony and Thuringia. New mortality rates have now been compiled for all of these groups of individuals at risk. Surprisingly, the highest mortality rates were found among the East German mineworkers.
In Hiroshima, on the other hand, radioactivity claimed surprisingly few human lives. Experts now know exactly what happened in the first hours, days and weeks after the devastating atomic explosion. Almost all of Hiroshima's 140,000 victims died quickly. Either they were crushed immediately by the shock wave, or they died within the next few days of acute burns.
But the notorious radiation sickness -- a gradual ailment that leads to certain death for anyone exposed to radiation levels of 6 Gray or higher -- was rare. The reason is that Little Boy simply did not produce enough radioactivity. But what about the long-term consequences? Didn't the radiation work like a time bomb in the body?
To answer these questions, the Japanese and the Americans launched a giant epidemiological study after the war. The study included all residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who had survived the atomic explosion within a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) radius. Investigators questioned the residents to obtain their precise locations when the bomb exploded, and used this information to calculate a personal radiation dose for each resident. Data was collected for 86,572 people.
Today, 60 years later, the study's results are clear. More than 700 people eventually died as a result of radiation received from the atomic attack:
* 87 died of leukemia;
* 440 died of tumors;
* and 250 died of radiation-induced heart attacks.
In addition, 30 fetuses developed mental disabilities after they were born.
Such statistics have attracted little notice so far. The numbers cited in schoolbooks are much higher. According to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, 105,000 people died of the "long-term consequences of radiation."
"For commendable reasons, many critics have greatly exaggerated the health risks of radioactivity," says Albrecht Kellerer, a Munich radiation biologist. "But contrary to widespread opinion, the number of victims is by no means in the tens of thousands."
Especially surprising, though, is that the stories of birth defects in newborns are also pure fantasy. The press has repeatedly embellished photos of a destroyed Hiroshima with those of deformed children, children without eyes or with three arms. In reality, there hasn't been a single study that provides evidence of an elevated rate of birth defects.
A final attempt to establish a connection is currently underway in Japan. The study includes 3,600 people who were unborn fetuses in their mothers' wombs on that horrific day in August 1945. But it too has failed to furnish any evidence of elevated chromosomal abnormality.
In Germany, where nuclear fears have coalesced with the fear of dying forests and mad cow disease into a general psychosis of threat, the degree of concern over nuclear radiation remains high. To this day, some are so fearful about the long-term effects of fallout from Chernobyl that they refuse to eat mushrooms from Bavaria. Even 20 years ago such behavior would not have made sense.
Officially 47 people -- members of the emergency rescue crews -- died in Chernobyl from exposure to lethal doses of radiation. This is serious enough. "But overall the amount of radiation that escaped was simply too low to claim large numbers of victims," explains Kellerer.
The iodine 131 that escaped from the reactor did end up causing severe health problems in Ukraine. It settled on meadows in the form of a fine dust, passing through the food chain, from grass to cows to milk, and eventually accumulating in the thyroid glands of children. About 4,000 children were afflicted with cancer. Less well-known, however, is the fact that only nine of those 4,000 died -- thyroid cancers are often easy to operate on. "Chernobyl was certainly a catastrophe," says GSF spokesman Heinz-J”rg Haury. "But it was also distorted and exaggerated."
More here
TREE RINGS DON'T INDICATE PAST TEMPERATURES
How sad for "hockeystick" Mann, whose last redoubt is rings from a stand of Bristlecone pines. Article below expands on my leading post of two days ago
One of the reasons I doubt that the climatologists who talk of global warming are scientists is the claim that tree rings provide precise evidence of past average temperatures that can be compared to thermometer measured temperatures.
Craig Loehle has published a study in [Energy & Environment] indicating that trees rings are not reliable for determining past temperatures. Loehle focused on the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) (1000 - 1400) which is not shown in tree rings, but is apparent using other so-called proxies.
Loehle notes that tree ring width respond to temperature in an inverse parabolic manner to temperature with growth increasing up to some optimal temperature and then decreasing with further temperature increases. In other words narrower rings could actually indicate higher temperature rather than lower temperature. Loehle suggests that higher evaporation rates at the higher temperatures may slow growth. Tree growth responds to changes in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by increasing growth as CO2 increases.
Loehle cites a satellite survey covering 1982 to 2003 that indicated in tundra areas photosynthetic activity increased, but such activity decreased in forested areas, possibly because of the density of trees. As density increases individual trees may receive less sunlight and have less energy available for growth.
Loehle doesn't examine the fact that trees reduce heating of the air by converting solar radiation into the chemical bonds of the carbon molecules deposited in the trunk. The greater the tree growth the lower the temperature if solar radiation remains constant.
Source
BRITISH CLIMATE VANDALS AND DENIERS!
(Formerly also known as "world leaders in climate policy")
Ruth Kelly's announcement in favour of further expansion at Heathrow Airport has been condemned by Green Party Principal Speaker and MEP Caroline Lucas as an act of "climate vandalism", and she accused the government of being "in denial" over climate change. "How it can be possible for the Prime Minister, just a few short days ago, to say that climate change was 'an immense challenge to the world', to which he promised to give utmost priority, in his first major speech on climate change since becoming Prime Minister - and now just a few days later, to give the green light to a major expansion of aviation, the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions? "Such behaviour isn't just pathological, it demonstrates a monumental failure of political leadership.
"The problem is the government is simultaneously committed to two completely contradictory policies. One is to cut dramatically greenhouse gas emissions. The other is to expand the aviation industry. The success of the first policy has been limited. The success of the second has been remarkable. "But it's time to challenge the political establishment to stop trying to inhabit two parallel worlds, and to accept that it simply isn't possible to expand aviation and simultaneously reduce aviation emissions. Efficiency gains via technological improvements are dwarfed by the overall growth rates, and the bottom line is simply this: the aviation industry has to stop expanding."
"Expansion at Heathrow is also likely to to breach mandatory EU air quality limit values that will apply from 2010 - I will be raising this with the Commission", she said.
Dr Lucas, who was the European Parliament's Rapporteur, or spokesperson, on aviation and environment last year, has been instrumental in developing EU legislation to try to reduce aviation emissions. Just last week, the European Parliament voted on the Commission's proposal to put the aviation sector into the Emissions Trading Scheme.
Dr Lucas said: "If emissions trading is to have a hope of reducing aviation emissions, there has to be a rigorous overall emissions cap, and serious limits to the amount of extra permits aviation is allowed to buy from other sources (ie, other industrial sectors, or projects abroad). Sadly, these two provisions were conspicuous by their absence in the commission proposal, but on the latter at least, I'm very pleased the Parliament has accepted my amendment to introduce such limits."
Source
Paint it white
Amid all the talk of cutting carbon emissions, we never hear about the simple solutions that can make a vast difference to temperatures
By Bjorn Lomborg
It's possible to see, right now, what global warming will eventually do to the planet. To peek into the future, all we have to do is go to Beijing, Athens, Tokyo, or, in fact, just about any city on Earth. Most of the world's urban areas have already experienced far more dramatic temperature hikes over the past few decades than the 2.6C increase expected from global warming over the next hundred years.
It's simple enough to understand. On a hot day in New York, locals sprawl out on the grass fields of Central Park, not on asphalt parking lots or concrete sidewalks. Bricks, concrete, and asphalt - the building blocks from which cities are made - absorb much more heat from the sun than vegetation does in the countryside. Across an entire city, there's much more tarmac than there is grass. So the air above the city heats up. This effect, called an "urban heat island," was discovered in London in the early 1800's.
Today, the fastest-growing cities are in Asia. Beijing is roughly 10C hotter than the nearby countryside in the daytime and 5.5C warmer at night. There are even more dramatic increases in Tokyo. In August, temperatures there climbed 12.5C above the surrounding countryside, reaching 40C - a scorching heat that affected not only the downtown area, but also covered some 8,000 square kilometers.
Looking at a fast-growing city like Houston, Texas, we can see the real effect of the urban heat island. Over the last 12 years, Houston grew by 20%, or 300,000 inhabitants. During that time, the night-time temperature increased about 0.8C. Over a hundred-year period, that would translate to a whopping 7C increase. But, while celebrity activists warn about the impending doom posed by climate change, a more realistic view is offered by these cities' ability to cope. Despite dramatic increases over the past 50 or 100 years, these cities have not come tumbling down. Even as temperatures have risen, heat-related deaths have decreased, owing to improved health care, access to medical facilities, and air-conditioning. We have far more money and much greater technological ability to adapt than our forebears ever did.
Of course, cities also will be hit by temperature increases from CO2, in addition to further warming from urban heat islands. But we have an opportunity to act. Unlike our forebears, who did very little or nothing about urban heat islands, we are in a good position to tackle many of their effects.
While celebrity activists focus entirely on cutting CO2, we could do much more - and at much lower cost - if we addressed urban heat islands. Simple solutions can make a vast difference to temperatures. Cities are hotter than the land around them because they are drier. They lack moist green spaces and have drainage systems that efficiently remove water. In London, the air around the river Thames is cooler than it is a few blocks away in built-up areas. If we plant trees and build water features, we won't just beautify our surroundings, but we'll also cool things down - by upwards of 8C, according to climate models.
Moreover, although it may seem almost comically straightforward, one of the best temperature-reducing approaches is very simple: paint things white. Cities have a lot of black asphalt and dark, heat-absorbing structures. By increasing reflection and shade, a great deal of heat build-up can be avoided. Paint most of a city and you could lower the temperature by 10C.
These options are simple, obvious, and cost-effective. Consider Los Angeles. Reroofing most of the city's five million homes in lighter colours, painting a quarter of the roads and planting 11m trees would have a one-time cost of about $1bn. Each year after that, this would lower air conditioning costs by about $170m and provide $360m in smog-reduction benefits. And it would lower LA temperatures by about 3C - or about the temperature increase envisioned for the rest of this century. Compare that to the $180bn cost of implementing the Kyoto Protocol, which will have virtually no effect.
At the moment, we don't hear much about the smartest choices when it comes to addressing global warming. That needs to change. We do get to choose which future we want.
Source
Meet the women who won't have babies - because they're not eco friendly
Gullible fools
Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy. But the very thought makes her shudder with horror. Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.
Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible "mistake" of pregnancy should never happen again, that she begged the doctor who performed the abortion to sterilise her at the same time. He refused, but Toni - who works for an environmental charity - "relentlessly hunted down a doctor who would perform the irreversible surgery. Finally, eight years ago, Toni got her way. At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to "protect the planet".
Incredibly, instead of mourning the loss of a family that never was, her boyfriend (now husband) presented her with a congratulations card. While some might think it strange to celebrate the reversal of nature and denial of motherhood, Toni relishes her decision with an almost religious zeal. "Having children is selfish. It's all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet," says Toni, 35. "Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population."
While most parents view their children as the ultimate miracle of nature, Toni seems to see them as a sinister threat to the future. It's an extreme stance which one might imagine is born from an unhappy childhood or an upbringing among parents who share similar, strong beliefs. But nothing in Toni's safe, middle- class upbringing gave any clues as to the views which would shape her adult life. The eldest of three daughters, she enjoyed a loving, close-knit family life. She excelled at her Roman Catholic school, and her doting parents fully expected her to grow up, settle down and start a family of her own.
"When I finished school, I got a job in retail and at 19, I met my first husband," says Toni. "No sooner had we finished our wedding cake than all our relatives started to ask when they could expect a new addition to the family. "I always told them that would never happen, but no one listened. "When I was a child, I loved bird-watching, and in my teens that developed into a passion for the environment as well as the welfare of animals - I became a vegetarian when I was 15. "Even my parents used to smile and say: 'You'll change your mind one day about babies.' "The only person who understood how I felt was my first husband, who didn't want children either. "We both passionately wanted to save the planet - not produce a new life which would only add to the problem."
Source
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For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
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Saturday, November 24, 2007
THE SANE MAN OF EUROPE SPEAKS
An email from Roger Helmer [roger.helmer@europarl.europa.eu], Conservative Member of the European Parliament
You may be interested in the letter below which I sent today to the Environment Editor of the Daily Telegraph, Charles Clover:
Dear Charles,
I was surprised to read in your piece in the DT yesterday that "no politician from a British party would side with the flat-earthers" (in your charming phrase) in the climate debate. I am afraid you are wrong. I myself have been campaigning against climate alarmism for some time. Only in April I conducted a major and very successful conference presenting the case against global warming hysteria, here in the European parliament in Brussels. My key-note speaker was former Chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby, who shares my view on the issue. I also took the issue to a packed fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference in October.
The evidence shows that climate drives CO2 levels, not vice versa. And as an erstwhile mathematician, I know that the climate forcing effect of atmospheric CO2 is not linear, and certainly not exponential (as hinted at in Al Gore's mendacious disaster movie). It is logarithmic. We are already well up the curve, and further increases in CO2 levels will have a marginal effect on climate.
In the eighteenth century William Herschel showed that sunspots drive the price of wheat. We can now explain this phenomenon -- sunspots lead to an increase in the Sun's magnetic field, which reduces the cosmic ray flux in our upper atmosphere and reduces cloud formation, leading to warmer weather, higher crop yields and lower grain prices. Yet now you describe those who recognise that the Sun drives climate as "flat-earthers".
You would do well to read your fellow columnist Jan Moir in today's paper. "I've yet to meet the person, politician or otherwise, who takes carbon emissions seriously". This is my experience. While organisations, companies, political parties and the media buy into climate alarmism at the official level, I am astonished by the large numbers of well-informed people who admit privately that it's nonsense. This is a scare like the Millennium Bug. We shall look back from the cold winters of the 2020s and be astonished at our gullibility.
To be fair, the Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph have given a good platform to the other side of the debate. But I am disappointed that you personally seem to see no need to report in a balanced way, but have chosen to act as a cheerleader for the alarmists.
A CLOSE LOOK AT THE LATEST IPCC DOCUMENT
Malcolm B Duncan presents his critical analysis of Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis Summary for Policy Makers released by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
Both scientific method and the law teach one to be skeptical and base one's conclusions on evidence. Steeped in both, I remain a climate change skeptic in the sense that, save for the effect of CFCs on the ozone layer, I can see no convincing evidence for human induced effects on the climate. By the same token, I remain agnostic on the issue: if there is evidence, I should like to see it. I have asked for it but not seen it. There are quite sensible things we should be doing like promoting our best renewable energy source, the sun. There are good reasons for conserving oil - we're going to need it for plastics not fuel. We can probably solve our water problems by putting some serious money into generating hydrogen from water using solar power and pumping it to where we need water. Then we burn it. Hey presto - water - as much as you want. Obviously research needs to be done into the effects of the energy use but that's what science is for. Using less coal would probably be a good idea but in order to do that we have to work out a way of replacing the revenue. We'll come to that - it's called policy. Pity none of the political parties has it.
Climate changes all the time and the planet is a dynamic system. One significant eruption would change the face of the planet entirely and there is constant production of greenhouse gas through tectonic plate movement particularly in the Pacific rift. Tim Flannery, who I find incredibly unconvincing, lets the cat out of the bag with a diagramme on p 60 of The Weather Makers. He uses ice core samples to determine greenhouse levels over time but, of course, that is only a measure of what is happening at the surface. There has simply not been a sufficient period of time for atmospheric research to show what has been happening in the upper atmosphere over centuries - we simply did not have the capacity until recently to take measurements. That means that the arguments being propounded surrounding "Climate Change" are relatively short-term.
That brings me to the Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis Summary for Policy Makers released by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change. Now, I have little or no time for the UN. It strikes me that it is a convenient way for a lot of parasites to make a much better quid than they could at home. It certainly has not brought peace to the world or an end to poverty or suffering. Sometimes, however, it does reasonable science. Let's look at how reasonable this science is. Despite all the rhetoric, as all good science does, this document is hedged with qualifications. First there is the assertion (p 2):
Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores (my emphasis)
Yet the explanation given includes this:
The annual carbon dioxide concentration growth-rate was larger during the last 10 years (1995-2005 average: 1.9 ppm per year) than it has been since the beginning of continuous atmospheric measurements (1960-2005 average 1.4 ppm per year) although there is year-to-year variability in growth rates
That's right: they've only been doing serious continuous measurements since 1960. A footnote says:
Climate Change in IPCC usage refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity.
Hmmm, so we're not necessarily talking about human activity as a factor. In the rest of the report, that just gets glossed over and of course it is ignored by every Climate Change nutter activist and journalist who says anything about the issue. In discussing sea levels, the report notes (p 5):
Whether the faster rate for 1993 to 2003 reflects decadal variability or an increase in the longer-term trend is unclear.
We know, of course, sea levels change radically over time: East of Eden. The limestone in the Atherton tablelands used to be the Great Barrier Reef etc. Then there's sea ice (p 6):
Antarctic sea ice continues to show inter-annual variability and localized changes but no statistically significant average trends
You don't read that in the newspapers. On p 8 we get this statement which I find interesting:
Paleoclimate information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1300 years. The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago) reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 to 6 metres of sea level rise.
I can't help wondering exactly how much coal humans were burning 125,000 years ago. Oh, and its happened before has it? Happens cyclically all the time over long periods. There is no discussion of the effect the deforestation of either the Australian continent or Europe had on the planet although I should have thought, according to the current popular orthodoxy, there would have to be a significant effect from both which would show up in ice core samples if that were a valid methodology. Its one of the reasons I don't think it is. Now, here's the likely bit (p 9):
The observed pattern of tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling is very likely due to the combined influences of greenhouse gas increases and stratospheric ozone depletion.
Conveniently, there is no attempt to attribute any percentage to either. Perhaps that's because it's not possible. Then there's the gloom and doom (p 12):
Anthropogenic warming and sea level rises would continue for centuries due to the timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized.
It strikes me that there are two points here. First, the idea that the dynamic system adjusts itself over centuries does not fit with a lot of the short-term measurement in the study itself and, secondly, if they're right, we're probably stuffed anyway. In the notes to the diagramme on p 16, there is this gem:
Volcanic aerosols contribute an additional natural forcing but are not included in this figure due to their episodic nature
Don't you love scientific rigour? We'll just leave out a major contributing factor that happens to be natural. Ripper. For all those reasons, I remain unconvinced.
Source
Coffee, tea... eco-guilt?
Virgin Atlantic's attempt to shame its passengers into onboard eco-penance is the latest flight of fancy from a guilt-ridden aviation industry.
Playing on people's guilt is the oldest trick in the book when it comes to charity fundraising. But the airline Virgin Atlantic has taken the concept to the extreme by trying to shame its passengers into donating money to the Swiss-based charity myclimate. If your idea of a holiday is a guilt-free escape from everyday life, then a Virgin Atlantic flight is sure to rid you of that apparently selfish delusion.
Virgin cabin crew have been instructed to offer passengers `carbon offsets' along with the booze, perfume and other items on sale on the in-flight duty free trolleys. As a Virgin spokesman told The Times (London): `If the person sitting next to you chooses to offset their flight, it may prick your conscience and you may pay too.' (1)
Prices of offsets vary according to the distance of the journey and the class you fly in. Using tenuous calculations to assess their passengers' impact on the planet (2), Virgin has figured out how much we must cough up to cleanse the filth generated by our energy-guzzling lifestyles. An economy-class return flight from London to New York will set you back just o11.98. This money will go to myclimate, which supports projects in the field of renewable energies and energy efficiency in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
No, 11.98 pounds is not a lot of money, but that's not the point. Not only does carbon-offsetting resemble a modern form of penance, encouraging us relatively wealthy Westerners to feel guilty about our convenient lifestyles, but the charities that promote offsets apparently have little time for public engagement and activism in order to convince us of their worth. Instead, they opt for simply selling us the feelgood factor.
Moreover, rather than working for genuine global material equality, many carbon-trading organisations only work towards sustainable underdevelopment for Third World residents - effectively, as Brendan O'Neill has argued on spiked, subjecting people in the Third World to `eco-enslavement' (3). So why should we be coerced by Virgin and others into supporting them?
Many airlines now offer carbon-offset options to customers as part of their online booking procedures, but there has been a slow uptake. Apparently, holidaymakers are reluctant to spend more on their travels in order to offset their carbon emissions. Some tourist agencies are trying to get around their customers' impertinence by introducing underhand methods to get them to repent their carbon sins. The tour operator First Choice, for instance, not only donates to the Travel Foundation, a charity that supports sustainable tourism projects around the world, but has also introduced an `opt out' carbon-offset scheme for its customers. Unless they specifically request otherwise, adults pay 1 pound and children 50 pence to offset emissions from their flights. First Choice then matches all donations (4).
Yet Virgin Atlantic's scheme takes the prize, because sitting crammed in an airplane seat, buckled up and with the aisle blocked by a duty-free trolley, there isn't much you can do to avoid the imploring carbon traders. Annoying as those street `charity muggers' are, stopping us on every corner to ask leading, conscience-twisting questions like `Do you care for the elderly?' or `Are you willing to spare two minutes for cancer research?', at least you can easily brush them off. On a plane, there is no escape.
Some of the money donated by Virgin passengers to myclimate will go towards supporting a power plant in India that runs on farming waste such as sugar cane husks. The purpose of this project is to use biomass as a fuel for energy production and to avoid waste materials rotting in the fields, where they release greenhouse gases and pollute the environment (5).
Sounds harmless. Yet biomass is a medieval fuel source and is not suitable for a twenty-first century energy supply. It could be argued that as an intermediary solution for impoverished rural communities, projects such as that run by myclimate make sense. Yet there is no sign that myclimate or other environmental charities would support those communities to move towards the modern forms of energy supplies that we in the West benefit from. In the developed world, we now take things like getting light by the flick of a switch or travelling great distances in a few hours for granted. Why should we feel guilty about this - and worse offset our guilt by donating to charities that seem designed to prevent people in the Third World from having as much as we have?
Flying, once an activity associated with freedom and discovery, and later seen as an immensely practical means of transportation, is now increasingly viewed as a mode of global destruction. Those who take flights are seen as selfish or even sinful and there is an array of campaigns to reduce air travel and to encourage us to make up for our planetary impact by donating money to carbon-offset schemes. By seeking absolution for our eco-sins in this way, the logic goes, we can continue to fly and at the same time silence that niggling thought that we are contributing to climate change. I'm not a Catholic, but I'm beginning to get a sense of what it might feel like to be one.
Source
It's time for all-out war on malaria
Bed-nets are not going to be enough if we're serious about eradicating a disease that kills a million Africans a year. Dreadful to state the obvious but bed nights only protect you at night. Pesky that mosquitoes also bite during the day, isn't it?.
If an accident kills wildlife or people, punishment is meted out and restitution made. A host of regulators, lawyers, judges, activists, journalists and politicians help bring the wrongdoers to justice.
But when it comes to policies and programmes that sicken and kill millions of parents and children a year, these ethics cops and eco-warriors are not just silent. They refuse to hold government agencies and activist groups to the same honesty and accountability standards they apply to for-profit companies. They even oppose programmes that would reduce disease and save lives.
More than two billion people worldwide are at risk of getting malaria, and 350-500million contract it every year, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. The disease kills up to a million African children annually, making it the continent's greatest executioner of children under age five. In Uganda alone, 60million cases of malaria caused 110,000 deaths in 2005 (1). In its Apac District, a person is likely to be bitten 1,560 times a year by mosquitoes infected with malaria parasites. The disease also perpetuates poverty (sick people can't work) and increases deaths from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, diarrhoea and malnutrition.
Controlling and eradicating this serial killer ought to be a global priority. But far too many organisations fail to take sufficient measures, while others actively oppose critically needed interventions.
UNICEF partners with Malaria No More to raise money from donors, distribute educational materials and long-lasting insecticide-treated bednets (LLINs), provide anti-malarial drugs, and save lives. `Sometimes' they organise teams to spray insecticides on the inside walls of houses, to `kill the female mosquito after she feeds on a person' (and frequently infects him or her). Under `some special circumstances', they support treating mosquito-breeding sites, if the larvacides are `environmentally friendly'.
All these interventions will help reduce disease and death tolls. They will garner plaudits from environmental activists. But these limited measures will not result in No More Malaria. Unless and until their programmes include regular use of larvacides and insecticides to control mosquitoes, and DDT in selected cases to keep the flying killers out of houses, UNICEF and MNM will not even come close to reducing malaria cases and deaths to what a moral person would deem tolerable levels: close to zero - not 50 per cent or even 25 per cent of current levels.
Kenya claims widespread distribution of insecticide-treated nets cut malaria deaths in half, in the short run anyway, when regular compliance was monitored. But that means 15,000 people are still dying each year. For Uganda, a 50 per cent reduction via nets would mean 30million cases of malaria and 55,000 deaths. Uganda's Ministry of Health recently studied 410 children who had been given LLINs and instructed in how to use them. Within two to three weeks, 52 per cent of the children were again infected with malaria. `The use of nets relies greatly on behavioral change and compliance, while indoor spraying eliminates that factor and protects everyone in the sprayed house', noted malaria programme director John Rwakimari. And yet misguided aid agencies, radical environmentalists and pseudo ethicists are telling African nations they should be happy with nets, use of limited insecticides `sometimes', and a 50 per cent reduction in malaria cases and deaths - because these activists in malaria-free countries dislike chemicals.
Equally unacceptable, 60 per cent of African child malaria victims are still being `treated' with chloroquine, which no longer kills African plasmodium parasites. The typical justification is that chloroquine is much less expensive than Artemisia-based combination therapies (ACT drugs) that do work. In other words, medical malpractitioners are saying it is better to give millions of children cheap drugs that don't work, and let thousands of them die, than it is to give fewer children more expensive drugs that work, and ensure that they live. By failing to support chemical mosquito killers and repellants, they are also guaranteeing tens of millions of needless malaria cases every year, continued shortfalls of effective medicines, and countless unnecessary deaths.
That is unforgivable, unconscionable and immoral. To achieve moral levels of malaria, countries need comprehensive, integrated programmes that include every weapon in the arsenal. None is appropriate in all places, at all times. But all must be available, so that they can be employed at the proper time and place. That is why the US Agency for International Development, the US President's Malaria Initiative and the World Health Organisation determined that these chemical weapons are vital in the war on malaria, and safe for people and the environment. Larvacides, insecticides and DDT - in conjunction with nets and other interventions - can reduce the number of malaria victims dramatically, and ensure that people who still get malaria can be treated with ACT drugs like Coartem. These truly integrated strategies have enabled South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland and Zanzibar to largely eradicate malaria.
Uganda, where I just spent a week on an anti-malaria mission, is using larvacides, insecticides, nets and other interventions. It has sprayed 95 per cent of households in the Kabale District (with the pesticide Icon) - and slashed the prevalence of malaria parasites in residents from 30 per cent before spraying to 3 per cent afterwards. Three other districts have also been sprayed, and Uganda's Ministry of Health plans to spray another 15 highly endemic areas in 2008, including the Apac District. In January, it will add DDT to its programme, for indoor residual spraying that will keep at least 70 per cent of mosquitoes from entering homes for up to eight months, with a single application.
Radical environmentalists are trying to stir up opposition to DDT and other spraying programmes, and some people in USAID and WHO continue undermining efforts to utilise chemical interventions. However, Uganda is adamant about ending the needless slaughter of its children and parents. President Yoweri Museveni, director general of health services Sam Zaramba and other leaders know DDT will save lives.
Anti-pesticide activists claim insecticide spraying is not sustainable. They are wrong - on financial, practical, public health and moral grounds. What are not sustainable are nothing-but-nets programmes that require constant monitoring to ensure daily use and moderate success - while raising the risk that mosquitoes will become resistant to pyrethroid pesticides that impregnate the nets, and parasites will become resistant to drugs that by default become the primary weapon in the war on malaria. What are truly not sustainable are unconscionable malaria tolls that result from politically correct policies that are best described as lethal experimentation on African children.
Source
Global Warming's Bottom Line
By Steven Milloy
Sen. Hillary Clinton last week proposed that publicly-owned companies should be required to disclose to shareholders the financial impacts of global warming. Financial reality, however, is already overtaking the financial fantasy of climate alarmists.
The idea behind Sen. Clinton's proposal - and other similar efforts by other Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the environmental advocacy group Ceres, to name a few - is that the alleged environmental consequences of global warming, ranging from drought and wildfires to lawsuits against energy companies and automobile manufacturers, pose significant financial risks that ought to be disclosed to shareholders.
Putting aside that weather-related events can't be tied to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), and that it's the Democrat-supporting environmental advocacy groups that are banging the drum for global warming-related litigation, Sen. Clinton's proposal completely ignores the real climate-related threats to business: the alarmism itself and attendant government regulation.
To illustrate this point, my colleague Tom Borelli and I examined some ongoing climate alarmism-related financial risks faced by the 20-plus corporate members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of corporations and environmental advocacy groups lobbying for global warming regulation. Congress and the state of California, for example, are considering legislation to ban by 2012 the incandescent light bulb, thereby forcing consumers to buy compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Because USCAP member General Electric manufactures CFLs in China, it now faces labor problems with its U.S. employees who make incandescent bulbs. Ironically, GE is working on a more efficient incandescent bulb that is slated to be available by 2010 - just in time to be banned.
Speaking of CFLs, let's not forget the mass tort lawsuit potential against manufacturers and sellers of potentially billions of mercury-containing CFL light bulbs that require special clean-up and disposal procedures.
GE also has a business interest in coal -- a major source of CO2 emissions. The company makes turbines for traditional coal-fired power plants and is developing so-called "Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle" (IGCC) technology - a system for capturing CO2 from coal-fired electricity plants. Although GE needs greenhouse gas regulations to drive growth for IGCC, its entire coal business is threatened by alarmism and regulation that would ban or greatly reduce the use of coal-fired power plants. Recent environmental group pressure caused the cancellation of eight coal-fired power plants that TXU Corp. planned to build. The cancellation caused, in turn, TXU to cancel its orders with GE for steam turbine generators.
USCAP member PepsiCo's bottled water business is also being jeopardized by promotion of global warming alarmism. The mayor of San Francisco recently banned the purchase of bottled water by the city government because plastic bottles sold to U.S. consumers "require about 47 million gallons of oil, the equivalent of one billion pounds of CO2 that is released into the atmosphere." San Francisco is not an isolated case. The mayor of Salt Lake City is urging the U.S. Conference of Mayors to promote tap water as a way to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, if bottled water is bad for the climate, it may be tough for PepsiCo to argue that other drinks in plastic bottles aren't similarly harmful to the climate.
A recent Congressional Budget Office study that found coal production would drop by 40 percent under global warming regulation. You might think that would cause heavy-equipment manufacturer Caterpillar - whose biggest customers include coal mining companies - to think twice before joining USCAP, but you'd be wrong. At least one coal company is now boycotting Caterpillar products because of its participation in USCAP.
Energy-intensive companies like USCAP members Alcoa, Alcan, Dow Chemical and DuPont already disclose in government filings that high-energy prices a near-certain outcome of global warming regulation are a significant business risk. While these companies may plan to offset higher energy prices and even profit by selling any carbon credits given to them for free by Congress as part of a cap-and-trade scheme, there is no guarantee that these companies will attain the favorable legislation they seek.
As the politics of windfall, pork-barrel global warming profits for special business interests become untenable, it is quite possible that Congress may decide to auction the carbon credits instead of giving them away. Companies that counted on free carbon credits may find that auctioned ones are a financial loser.
The corporate failure to disclose the risk of global warming regulation goes beyond USCAP members. Wal-Mart actively promotes the notion that action needs to be taken against global warming, despite the likelihood of high energy prices. The company's disappointing earnings in August 2007, after all, were attributed to an "increase in the cost of living and gas prices" and the fact that "many customers are running out of money towards the end of the month."
High-energy prices will significantly increase the cost of Wal-Mart's operations since it's the largest private user of electricity in the U.S. Each of its 2,074 supercenters uses an average of 1.5 million kilowatts annually - enough as a group to power some small countries. Wal-Mart's fleet of trucks is the second largest and travel a billion miles a year.
The irony in all this, of course, is that many businesses are actually pushing Congress to make global warming-related financial risks come true. Do these companies know something that we don't? Or is this just reckless political correctness? Only time will tell. But in the meantime, shouldn't shareholder be told about the risks related to global warming alarmism?
Source
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For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
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An email from Roger Helmer [roger.helmer@europarl.europa.eu], Conservative Member of the European Parliament
You may be interested in the letter below which I sent today to the Environment Editor of the Daily Telegraph, Charles Clover:
Dear Charles,
I was surprised to read in your piece in the DT yesterday that "no politician from a British party would side with the flat-earthers" (in your charming phrase) in the climate debate. I am afraid you are wrong. I myself have been campaigning against climate alarmism for some time. Only in April I conducted a major and very successful conference presenting the case against global warming hysteria, here in the European parliament in Brussels. My key-note speaker was former Chancellor Lord Lawson of Blaby, who shares my view on the issue. I also took the issue to a packed fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference in October.
The evidence shows that climate drives CO2 levels, not vice versa. And as an erstwhile mathematician, I know that the climate forcing effect of atmospheric CO2 is not linear, and certainly not exponential (as hinted at in Al Gore's mendacious disaster movie). It is logarithmic. We are already well up the curve, and further increases in CO2 levels will have a marginal effect on climate.
In the eighteenth century William Herschel showed that sunspots drive the price of wheat. We can now explain this phenomenon -- sunspots lead to an increase in the Sun's magnetic field, which reduces the cosmic ray flux in our upper atmosphere and reduces cloud formation, leading to warmer weather, higher crop yields and lower grain prices. Yet now you describe those who recognise that the Sun drives climate as "flat-earthers".
You would do well to read your fellow columnist Jan Moir in today's paper. "I've yet to meet the person, politician or otherwise, who takes carbon emissions seriously". This is my experience. While organisations, companies, political parties and the media buy into climate alarmism at the official level, I am astonished by the large numbers of well-informed people who admit privately that it's nonsense. This is a scare like the Millennium Bug. We shall look back from the cold winters of the 2020s and be astonished at our gullibility.
To be fair, the Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph have given a good platform to the other side of the debate. But I am disappointed that you personally seem to see no need to report in a balanced way, but have chosen to act as a cheerleader for the alarmists.
A CLOSE LOOK AT THE LATEST IPCC DOCUMENT
Malcolm B Duncan presents his critical analysis of Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis Summary for Policy Makers released by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
Both scientific method and the law teach one to be skeptical and base one's conclusions on evidence. Steeped in both, I remain a climate change skeptic in the sense that, save for the effect of CFCs on the ozone layer, I can see no convincing evidence for human induced effects on the climate. By the same token, I remain agnostic on the issue: if there is evidence, I should like to see it. I have asked for it but not seen it. There are quite sensible things we should be doing like promoting our best renewable energy source, the sun. There are good reasons for conserving oil - we're going to need it for plastics not fuel. We can probably solve our water problems by putting some serious money into generating hydrogen from water using solar power and pumping it to where we need water. Then we burn it. Hey presto - water - as much as you want. Obviously research needs to be done into the effects of the energy use but that's what science is for. Using less coal would probably be a good idea but in order to do that we have to work out a way of replacing the revenue. We'll come to that - it's called policy. Pity none of the political parties has it.
Climate changes all the time and the planet is a dynamic system. One significant eruption would change the face of the planet entirely and there is constant production of greenhouse gas through tectonic plate movement particularly in the Pacific rift. Tim Flannery, who I find incredibly unconvincing, lets the cat out of the bag with a diagramme on p 60 of The Weather Makers. He uses ice core samples to determine greenhouse levels over time but, of course, that is only a measure of what is happening at the surface. There has simply not been a sufficient period of time for atmospheric research to show what has been happening in the upper atmosphere over centuries - we simply did not have the capacity until recently to take measurements. That means that the arguments being propounded surrounding "Climate Change" are relatively short-term.
That brings me to the Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis Summary for Policy Makers released by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change. Now, I have little or no time for the UN. It strikes me that it is a convenient way for a lot of parasites to make a much better quid than they could at home. It certainly has not brought peace to the world or an end to poverty or suffering. Sometimes, however, it does reasonable science. Let's look at how reasonable this science is. Despite all the rhetoric, as all good science does, this document is hedged with qualifications. First there is the assertion (p 2):
Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores (my emphasis)
Yet the explanation given includes this:
The annual carbon dioxide concentration growth-rate was larger during the last 10 years (1995-2005 average: 1.9 ppm per year) than it has been since the beginning of continuous atmospheric measurements (1960-2005 average 1.4 ppm per year) although there is year-to-year variability in growth rates
That's right: they've only been doing serious continuous measurements since 1960. A footnote says:
Climate Change in IPCC usage refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity.
Hmmm, so we're not necessarily talking about human activity as a factor. In the rest of the report, that just gets glossed over and of course it is ignored by every Climate Change nutter activist and journalist who says anything about the issue. In discussing sea levels, the report notes (p 5):
Whether the faster rate for 1993 to 2003 reflects decadal variability or an increase in the longer-term trend is unclear.
We know, of course, sea levels change radically over time: East of Eden. The limestone in the Atherton tablelands used to be the Great Barrier Reef etc. Then there's sea ice (p 6):
Antarctic sea ice continues to show inter-annual variability and localized changes but no statistically significant average trends
You don't read that in the newspapers. On p 8 we get this statement which I find interesting:
Paleoclimate information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1300 years. The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago) reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 to 6 metres of sea level rise.
I can't help wondering exactly how much coal humans were burning 125,000 years ago. Oh, and its happened before has it? Happens cyclically all the time over long periods. There is no discussion of the effect the deforestation of either the Australian continent or Europe had on the planet although I should have thought, according to the current popular orthodoxy, there would have to be a significant effect from both which would show up in ice core samples if that were a valid methodology. Its one of the reasons I don't think it is. Now, here's the likely bit (p 9):
The observed pattern of tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling is very likely due to the combined influences of greenhouse gas increases and stratospheric ozone depletion.
Conveniently, there is no attempt to attribute any percentage to either. Perhaps that's because it's not possible. Then there's the gloom and doom (p 12):
Anthropogenic warming and sea level rises would continue for centuries due to the timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized.
It strikes me that there are two points here. First, the idea that the dynamic system adjusts itself over centuries does not fit with a lot of the short-term measurement in the study itself and, secondly, if they're right, we're probably stuffed anyway. In the notes to the diagramme on p 16, there is this gem:
Volcanic aerosols contribute an additional natural forcing but are not included in this figure due to their episodic nature
Don't you love scientific rigour? We'll just leave out a major contributing factor that happens to be natural. Ripper. For all those reasons, I remain unconvinced.
Source
Coffee, tea... eco-guilt?
Virgin Atlantic's attempt to shame its passengers into onboard eco-penance is the latest flight of fancy from a guilt-ridden aviation industry.
Playing on people's guilt is the oldest trick in the book when it comes to charity fundraising. But the airline Virgin Atlantic has taken the concept to the extreme by trying to shame its passengers into donating money to the Swiss-based charity myclimate. If your idea of a holiday is a guilt-free escape from everyday life, then a Virgin Atlantic flight is sure to rid you of that apparently selfish delusion.
Virgin cabin crew have been instructed to offer passengers `carbon offsets' along with the booze, perfume and other items on sale on the in-flight duty free trolleys. As a Virgin spokesman told The Times (London): `If the person sitting next to you chooses to offset their flight, it may prick your conscience and you may pay too.' (1)
Prices of offsets vary according to the distance of the journey and the class you fly in. Using tenuous calculations to assess their passengers' impact on the planet (2), Virgin has figured out how much we must cough up to cleanse the filth generated by our energy-guzzling lifestyles. An economy-class return flight from London to New York will set you back just o11.98. This money will go to myclimate, which supports projects in the field of renewable energies and energy efficiency in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
No, 11.98 pounds is not a lot of money, but that's not the point. Not only does carbon-offsetting resemble a modern form of penance, encouraging us relatively wealthy Westerners to feel guilty about our convenient lifestyles, but the charities that promote offsets apparently have little time for public engagement and activism in order to convince us of their worth. Instead, they opt for simply selling us the feelgood factor.
Moreover, rather than working for genuine global material equality, many carbon-trading organisations only work towards sustainable underdevelopment for Third World residents - effectively, as Brendan O'Neill has argued on spiked, subjecting people in the Third World to `eco-enslavement' (3). So why should we be coerced by Virgin and others into supporting them?
Many airlines now offer carbon-offset options to customers as part of their online booking procedures, but there has been a slow uptake. Apparently, holidaymakers are reluctant to spend more on their travels in order to offset their carbon emissions. Some tourist agencies are trying to get around their customers' impertinence by introducing underhand methods to get them to repent their carbon sins. The tour operator First Choice, for instance, not only donates to the Travel Foundation, a charity that supports sustainable tourism projects around the world, but has also introduced an `opt out' carbon-offset scheme for its customers. Unless they specifically request otherwise, adults pay 1 pound and children 50 pence to offset emissions from their flights. First Choice then matches all donations (4).
Yet Virgin Atlantic's scheme takes the prize, because sitting crammed in an airplane seat, buckled up and with the aisle blocked by a duty-free trolley, there isn't much you can do to avoid the imploring carbon traders. Annoying as those street `charity muggers' are, stopping us on every corner to ask leading, conscience-twisting questions like `Do you care for the elderly?' or `Are you willing to spare two minutes for cancer research?', at least you can easily brush them off. On a plane, there is no escape.
Some of the money donated by Virgin passengers to myclimate will go towards supporting a power plant in India that runs on farming waste such as sugar cane husks. The purpose of this project is to use biomass as a fuel for energy production and to avoid waste materials rotting in the fields, where they release greenhouse gases and pollute the environment (5).
Sounds harmless. Yet biomass is a medieval fuel source and is not suitable for a twenty-first century energy supply. It could be argued that as an intermediary solution for impoverished rural communities, projects such as that run by myclimate make sense. Yet there is no sign that myclimate or other environmental charities would support those communities to move towards the modern forms of energy supplies that we in the West benefit from. In the developed world, we now take things like getting light by the flick of a switch or travelling great distances in a few hours for granted. Why should we feel guilty about this - and worse offset our guilt by donating to charities that seem designed to prevent people in the Third World from having as much as we have?
Flying, once an activity associated with freedom and discovery, and later seen as an immensely practical means of transportation, is now increasingly viewed as a mode of global destruction. Those who take flights are seen as selfish or even sinful and there is an array of campaigns to reduce air travel and to encourage us to make up for our planetary impact by donating money to carbon-offset schemes. By seeking absolution for our eco-sins in this way, the logic goes, we can continue to fly and at the same time silence that niggling thought that we are contributing to climate change. I'm not a Catholic, but I'm beginning to get a sense of what it might feel like to be one.
Source
It's time for all-out war on malaria
Bed-nets are not going to be enough if we're serious about eradicating a disease that kills a million Africans a year. Dreadful to state the obvious but bed nights only protect you at night. Pesky that mosquitoes also bite during the day, isn't it?.
If an accident kills wildlife or people, punishment is meted out and restitution made. A host of regulators, lawyers, judges, activists, journalists and politicians help bring the wrongdoers to justice.
But when it comes to policies and programmes that sicken and kill millions of parents and children a year, these ethics cops and eco-warriors are not just silent. They refuse to hold government agencies and activist groups to the same honesty and accountability standards they apply to for-profit companies. They even oppose programmes that would reduce disease and save lives.
More than two billion people worldwide are at risk of getting malaria, and 350-500million contract it every year, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. The disease kills up to a million African children annually, making it the continent's greatest executioner of children under age five. In Uganda alone, 60million cases of malaria caused 110,000 deaths in 2005 (1). In its Apac District, a person is likely to be bitten 1,560 times a year by mosquitoes infected with malaria parasites. The disease also perpetuates poverty (sick people can't work) and increases deaths from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, diarrhoea and malnutrition.
Controlling and eradicating this serial killer ought to be a global priority. But far too many organisations fail to take sufficient measures, while others actively oppose critically needed interventions.
UNICEF partners with Malaria No More to raise money from donors, distribute educational materials and long-lasting insecticide-treated bednets (LLINs), provide anti-malarial drugs, and save lives. `Sometimes' they organise teams to spray insecticides on the inside walls of houses, to `kill the female mosquito after she feeds on a person' (and frequently infects him or her). Under `some special circumstances', they support treating mosquito-breeding sites, if the larvacides are `environmentally friendly'.
All these interventions will help reduce disease and death tolls. They will garner plaudits from environmental activists. But these limited measures will not result in No More Malaria. Unless and until their programmes include regular use of larvacides and insecticides to control mosquitoes, and DDT in selected cases to keep the flying killers out of houses, UNICEF and MNM will not even come close to reducing malaria cases and deaths to what a moral person would deem tolerable levels: close to zero - not 50 per cent or even 25 per cent of current levels.
Kenya claims widespread distribution of insecticide-treated nets cut malaria deaths in half, in the short run anyway, when regular compliance was monitored. But that means 15,000 people are still dying each year. For Uganda, a 50 per cent reduction via nets would mean 30million cases of malaria and 55,000 deaths. Uganda's Ministry of Health recently studied 410 children who had been given LLINs and instructed in how to use them. Within two to three weeks, 52 per cent of the children were again infected with malaria. `The use of nets relies greatly on behavioral change and compliance, while indoor spraying eliminates that factor and protects everyone in the sprayed house', noted malaria programme director John Rwakimari. And yet misguided aid agencies, radical environmentalists and pseudo ethicists are telling African nations they should be happy with nets, use of limited insecticides `sometimes', and a 50 per cent reduction in malaria cases and deaths - because these activists in malaria-free countries dislike chemicals.
Equally unacceptable, 60 per cent of African child malaria victims are still being `treated' with chloroquine, which no longer kills African plasmodium parasites. The typical justification is that chloroquine is much less expensive than Artemisia-based combination therapies (ACT drugs) that do work. In other words, medical malpractitioners are saying it is better to give millions of children cheap drugs that don't work, and let thousands of them die, than it is to give fewer children more expensive drugs that work, and ensure that they live. By failing to support chemical mosquito killers and repellants, they are also guaranteeing tens of millions of needless malaria cases every year, continued shortfalls of effective medicines, and countless unnecessary deaths.
That is unforgivable, unconscionable and immoral. To achieve moral levels of malaria, countries need comprehensive, integrated programmes that include every weapon in the arsenal. None is appropriate in all places, at all times. But all must be available, so that they can be employed at the proper time and place. That is why the US Agency for International Development, the US President's Malaria Initiative and the World Health Organisation determined that these chemical weapons are vital in the war on malaria, and safe for people and the environment. Larvacides, insecticides and DDT - in conjunction with nets and other interventions - can reduce the number of malaria victims dramatically, and ensure that people who still get malaria can be treated with ACT drugs like Coartem. These truly integrated strategies have enabled South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland and Zanzibar to largely eradicate malaria.
Uganda, where I just spent a week on an anti-malaria mission, is using larvacides, insecticides, nets and other interventions. It has sprayed 95 per cent of households in the Kabale District (with the pesticide Icon) - and slashed the prevalence of malaria parasites in residents from 30 per cent before spraying to 3 per cent afterwards. Three other districts have also been sprayed, and Uganda's Ministry of Health plans to spray another 15 highly endemic areas in 2008, including the Apac District. In January, it will add DDT to its programme, for indoor residual spraying that will keep at least 70 per cent of mosquitoes from entering homes for up to eight months, with a single application.
Radical environmentalists are trying to stir up opposition to DDT and other spraying programmes, and some people in USAID and WHO continue undermining efforts to utilise chemical interventions. However, Uganda is adamant about ending the needless slaughter of its children and parents. President Yoweri Museveni, director general of health services Sam Zaramba and other leaders know DDT will save lives.
Anti-pesticide activists claim insecticide spraying is not sustainable. They are wrong - on financial, practical, public health and moral grounds. What are not sustainable are nothing-but-nets programmes that require constant monitoring to ensure daily use and moderate success - while raising the risk that mosquitoes will become resistant to pyrethroid pesticides that impregnate the nets, and parasites will become resistant to drugs that by default become the primary weapon in the war on malaria. What are truly not sustainable are unconscionable malaria tolls that result from politically correct policies that are best described as lethal experimentation on African children.
Source
Global Warming's Bottom Line
By Steven Milloy
Sen. Hillary Clinton last week proposed that publicly-owned companies should be required to disclose to shareholders the financial impacts of global warming. Financial reality, however, is already overtaking the financial fantasy of climate alarmists.
The idea behind Sen. Clinton's proposal - and other similar efforts by other Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the environmental advocacy group Ceres, to name a few - is that the alleged environmental consequences of global warming, ranging from drought and wildfires to lawsuits against energy companies and automobile manufacturers, pose significant financial risks that ought to be disclosed to shareholders.
Putting aside that weather-related events can't be tied to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), and that it's the Democrat-supporting environmental advocacy groups that are banging the drum for global warming-related litigation, Sen. Clinton's proposal completely ignores the real climate-related threats to business: the alarmism itself and attendant government regulation.
To illustrate this point, my colleague Tom Borelli and I examined some ongoing climate alarmism-related financial risks faced by the 20-plus corporate members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of corporations and environmental advocacy groups lobbying for global warming regulation. Congress and the state of California, for example, are considering legislation to ban by 2012 the incandescent light bulb, thereby forcing consumers to buy compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Because USCAP member General Electric manufactures CFLs in China, it now faces labor problems with its U.S. employees who make incandescent bulbs. Ironically, GE is working on a more efficient incandescent bulb that is slated to be available by 2010 - just in time to be banned.
Speaking of CFLs, let's not forget the mass tort lawsuit potential against manufacturers and sellers of potentially billions of mercury-containing CFL light bulbs that require special clean-up and disposal procedures.
GE also has a business interest in coal -- a major source of CO2 emissions. The company makes turbines for traditional coal-fired power plants and is developing so-called "Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle" (IGCC) technology - a system for capturing CO2 from coal-fired electricity plants. Although GE needs greenhouse gas regulations to drive growth for IGCC, its entire coal business is threatened by alarmism and regulation that would ban or greatly reduce the use of coal-fired power plants. Recent environmental group pressure caused the cancellation of eight coal-fired power plants that TXU Corp. planned to build. The cancellation caused, in turn, TXU to cancel its orders with GE for steam turbine generators.
USCAP member PepsiCo's bottled water business is also being jeopardized by promotion of global warming alarmism. The mayor of San Francisco recently banned the purchase of bottled water by the city government because plastic bottles sold to U.S. consumers "require about 47 million gallons of oil, the equivalent of one billion pounds of CO2 that is released into the atmosphere." San Francisco is not an isolated case. The mayor of Salt Lake City is urging the U.S. Conference of Mayors to promote tap water as a way to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, if bottled water is bad for the climate, it may be tough for PepsiCo to argue that other drinks in plastic bottles aren't similarly harmful to the climate.
A recent Congressional Budget Office study that found coal production would drop by 40 percent under global warming regulation. You might think that would cause heavy-equipment manufacturer Caterpillar - whose biggest customers include coal mining companies - to think twice before joining USCAP, but you'd be wrong. At least one coal company is now boycotting Caterpillar products because of its participation in USCAP.
Energy-intensive companies like USCAP members Alcoa, Alcan, Dow Chemical and DuPont already disclose in government filings that high-energy prices a near-certain outcome of global warming regulation are a significant business risk. While these companies may plan to offset higher energy prices and even profit by selling any carbon credits given to them for free by Congress as part of a cap-and-trade scheme, there is no guarantee that these companies will attain the favorable legislation they seek.
As the politics of windfall, pork-barrel global warming profits for special business interests become untenable, it is quite possible that Congress may decide to auction the carbon credits instead of giving them away. Companies that counted on free carbon credits may find that auctioned ones are a financial loser.
The corporate failure to disclose the risk of global warming regulation goes beyond USCAP members. Wal-Mart actively promotes the notion that action needs to be taken against global warming, despite the likelihood of high energy prices. The company's disappointing earnings in August 2007, after all, were attributed to an "increase in the cost of living and gas prices" and the fact that "many customers are running out of money towards the end of the month."
High-energy prices will significantly increase the cost of Wal-Mart's operations since it's the largest private user of electricity in the U.S. Each of its 2,074 supercenters uses an average of 1.5 million kilowatts annually - enough as a group to power some small countries. Wal-Mart's fleet of trucks is the second largest and travel a billion miles a year.
The irony in all this, of course, is that many businesses are actually pushing Congress to make global warming-related financial risks come true. Do these companies know something that we don't? Or is this just reckless political correctness? Only time will tell. But in the meantime, shouldn't shareholder be told about the risks related to global warming alarmism?
Source
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For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
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Friday, November 23, 2007
COMBINING MANY MEASUREMENTS SHOWS THAT THE MIDDLE AGES WERE WARMER THAN NOW
Journal abstract and graph below:
Energy & Environment, 2007, 18(7-8): 1049-1058
A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies
By Loehle, C.
Historical data provide a baseline for judging how anomalous recent temperature changes are and for assessing the degree to which organisms are likely to be adversely affected by current or future warming. Climate histories are commonly reconstructed from a variety of sources, including ice cores, tree rings, and sediment. Tree-ring data, being the most abundant for recent centuries, tend to dominate reconstructions. There are reasons to believe that tree ring data may not properly capture long-term climate changes. In this study, eighteen 2000-year-long series were obtained that were not based on tree ring data. Data in each series were smoothed with a 30-year running mean. All data were then converted to anomalies by subtracting the mean of each series from that series. The overall mean series was then computed by simple averaging. The mean time series shows quite coherent structure. The mean series shows the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA) quite clearly, with the MWP being approximately 0.3°C warmer than 20th century values at these eighteen sites.
Source
Have a Green Thanksgiving
Worries over calories or family squabbles pale in comparison: Make room for a green Thanksgiving, which has nothing to do with broccoli and everything to do with guilt. Scolds and activists have descended upon tomorrow's feast, demanding Americans serve a "sustainable" meal that conforms to a brisk list of eco-conscious dictums. It can boil down to finicky details.
"Serve tap water instead of bottled at your holiday table and cut down on plastic bottles," noted the World Wildlife Fund yesterday in its top-10 tips for a low-impact Thanksgiving. "Serve wine sealed with a cork not a plastic stopper."
The D.C.-based conservation group also recommends online shopping, centerpieces made from backyard brambles, minimal packaging on food items and an attitude adjustment. "Although Thanksgiving is supposed to be a feast, don't prepare more food than will be eaten. American's throw out nearly 40 percent of their food. This year, encourage guests to clean their plates," they advised.
This year, one must practice "local eating for global change," said Canadian-based cookbook author Alisa Smith. If the turkey, veggies, breads and other holiday menu staples are not grown or produced within 100 miles of home, forget it. Such items require too much fossil fuel to get them from field to table, Ms. Smith reasoned — but her logic has serious impact on granny's traditions. Cinnamon and nutmeg are verboten in the pumpkin pie, for example; both spices are imported. And unless a bog is down the block, cranberries can be on the no-no list as well.
More here
An awkward admission from some Warmist scientists
In a Policy Forum article inspired by the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Oppenheimer et al. (2007) write in the 14 September issue of Science that "with the general credibility of the science of climate change established, it is now equally important that policy-makers understand the more extreme possibilities that consensus may exclude or downplay." Why is that? Because, as they continue, "setting aside or minimizing the importance of key structural uncertainties in underlying processes is a frequent outcome of the drive for consensus."
In light of this illuminating admission, we note that the setting aside of key uncertainties in the climate modeling enterprise could well lead to more extreme possibilities at both ends of the climate prognostication spectrum, such that not only may earth's surface air temperature rise somewhat more than is predicted by the current IPCC consensus, it could equally as easily rise somewhat less than that august group has opined. And for the IPCC's current full range prediction of 21st century warming (1.1-6.4øC), somewhat less warming could well turn out to be indistinguishable from no warming at all.
But how could this possibly be? The answer may well be found in the implementation of another important principle enunciated by Oppenheimer et al., i.e., their contention that the basis for quantitative uncertainty estimates "must be broadened [our italics] to give observational, paleoclimatic, or theoretical evidence of poorly understood phenomena comparable weight [our italics] with evidence from numerical modeling."
As a prime example of important paleoclimatic evidence that has been largely ignored by the IPCC, we cite the stunning results of the many studies we continue to identify and analyze in our Medieval Warm Period Project, where each week we highlight the findings of a different paleoclimatic study that reveals the time domain and various climatic characteristics of this probably warmer-than-present century-scale period of a thousand years ago, when the atmosphere's CO2 concentration was only about 70% of what it is today. A repeat performance of whatever caused that earlier warm period (it was clearly not a spike in the air's CO2 concentration) may well be what brought about the Little Ice Age-to-Current Warm Period transition; and its possible full or partial reversal some time over the next 93 years could well result in the mean global air temperature in AD 2100 being equal to -- or even less than -- today's mean air temperature.
Likewise, an example of a poorly understood phenomenon of truly huge climatic significance is the means by which small changes in solar activity are able to bring about significant changes in climate. As Lean (2005) describes it, "a major enigma is that general circulation climate models predict an immutable climate in response to decadal solar variability, whereas surface temperatures, cloud cover, drought, rainfall, tropical cyclones, and forest fires show a definite correlation with solar activity."
In a display of open-mindedness uncharacteristic of most climate alarmists, Oppenheimer et al. go on to suggest that "a special team of authors could be instructed to examine the treatment of unlikely but plausible processes," stating that such analyses might even be conducted by "competing teams of experts." Unfortunately, past findings of the IPCC are already driving massive political and governmental actions throughout the world; and backtracking -- which is what the implementation of Oppenheimer et al.'s suggestions would effectively constitute -- simply cannot be tolerated by those who have invested so much political and economic capital in the reigning climate-change paradigm of CO2-as-global-warming-demon ... unless, of course, people suddenly come to their senses and begin paying attention to all of the pertinent scientific literature, as we attempt to do here at CO2Science.
Source
Environmentalism in an historical context
By Sean Gabb
According to all the newspapers and television stations and all the politicians, we are facing a serious environmental crisis. We are told that global temperatures are rising, and that they are rising because of economic development, and that, unless we make radical changes to the ways in which we live, sea levels will rise and the world in general will become less pleasant.
I am not a scientist, and I am not competent to examine the detailed claims about the nature and extent and causes of global warming. But I believe these claims are all lies. I believe they are the latest attempt by some very nasty people to stop the progress of the human race to unlimited self-improvement.
History and Class Oppression
Until about 250 year ago, the normal situation of humanity was stagnation. There might be ages of improvement, but these hardly ever improved the lives of the poorest, and they were always followed by a decline of economic activity. This was a world in which society was shaped like a broad pyramid-a very small ruling class enjoying fabulous wealth and status, and a great mass or ordinary people at the bottom living in poverty. It was a world in which more than half of all children born died before they reached the age of five, and in which the great majority of ordinary people died in their thirties.
The libertarian revolutions of the 17th century in England led to a sudden increase in general wealth during the 18th century. By around 1800, it was plain that this was an improvement unlike any other before. For the first time, larger and larger numbers of ordinary people were enjoying cheaper and better food and clothing. Other European governments looked on this with envy, as greater national wealth meant greater military power.
But many, both abroad and in England, were concerned about the social and political impact of these developments. They meant that more and more ordinary people were moving about and improving their lives, and they were thinking for themselves, and beginning to question political arrangements that delivered immense differences of wealth and status.
The Reaction
The first reaction against market liberalism was purely conservative. Churches and landowning interests put much effort into defending the old order of things. Look, for example, at this verse from a Church of England hymn:
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate
The meaning of this is that God had given everyone a certain position in the world, and this position had to be accepted without complaint or attempts at change. Without massive government force behind it, this sort of reaction was a failure in every place it was tried. Even there, it tended to fail. No dungeons in this world, or threats of hellfire in the next, could stifle the news of freedom and enrichment.
And so the next step in reaction was to disguise conservatism as progress. Ideologies were developed that looked progressive, but the effect of which would be to stop all further progress. That is the significance of many kinds of socialism and particularly Marxism. These doctrines spoke about equality and freedom and growing wealth, but were obviously about the exact opposite. Even before the first socialist experiments, liberals were analysing the socialist claims and announcing that a socialist society would be a dictatorship in which the great majority of ordinary people would be made poor again.
This was the result of actually existing socialism in the 20th century. Countries like Russia, East Germany and Czechoslovakia had fast economic development among their stated goals. In fact, the only really growth was in the amount of pollution their factories produced. The only liberty and equality and economic development that have ever been seen have taken place in countries like England and America and Germany and Japan- where people have mostly been left alone to look after themselves and their families.
With the collapse of socialism at the end of the 1980s, it looked for a moment as if all the barriers had been lifted to unlimited improvement for the whole human race. It seemed that we could look forward to a world in which everyone had a motor car and a refrigerator and a telephone.
Environmentalism: The Last Communist Refuge
Then the environmental movement grew big. This had been around since the early 1960s. At first, it concentrated on things like chemical pollution and rapid population growth and how the world would soon run out of oil and other minerals. The problem was that its claims were always proved to be wrong. For example, we were told in the 1960s that population growth would soon lead to mass starvation. In the event, living standards continued to rise faster and faster all over the world. Again, we were told that the oil would run out before the middle of the 1980s. In the event, more and more oil was found, and we now know that we have enough to last for centuries to come. Again we were told in the 1970s that industrialisation was leading to global cooling and that there would soon be another ice age. This also did not happen.
But, since the collapse of socialism, the environmental movement has grown bigger and bigger, and is now arguing for regulations and taxes that would soon stop all further economic growth-particularly in Asia, India, Africa and South America. That is the goal of all this endless propaganda in the media, and all the talk about carbon footprints.
Now, it may be that there really is a problem with the environment. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But I find it historically significant that environmentalism has grown big at the very moment when every other argument against human progress has been disproved. I therefore believe that the claims of the environmentalists are lies. They are an excuse for returning humanity to a dark age of inequality and stagnation.
Source
Back to the horse!
This is a rather good confirmation of the retrograde mentality that Sean Gabb speaks of above
French towns worried about fuel prices, pollution and striking transport workers need look no further than the horse. Horses are a possible alternative for vehicles such as school buses and refuse trucks, say groups eager to pick up on global concerns about eco-friendly transport. "It's all about sustainable development and bringing some humanity back to today's monotonous, machine-driven jobs," Stephane de Veyrac, from the French National Stud Organisation, said at this week's annual conference of French mayors.
De Veyrac's group says it is the first in France to offer consulting on a wide range of horse-powered vehicles that could also haul bottles and aid street sweeping. "It is a serious alternative -- horses are already in use in over 70 towns as replacements for gasoline- and diesel-powered service vehicles," said de Veyrac, pointing to the 'Hippoville' prototype parked in the exhibition hall. With prices starting at 11,562 euros ($17,090), this revamped horse-drawn carriage with disc brakes, signal lamps and removable seating, goes for around the same price as 170 barrels of crude oil.
De Veyrac's group was founded by Louis XIV's Finance Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert to supply war horses for military campaigns. Today the group advises French towns interested in horses for city services. One project in northern France involves a pick-up route for glass bottles in the seaside resort of Trouville. The project is backed by the Regional Horse Promotion Commission, which holds an annual convention in Trouville to promote horses for collecting recyclables, street sweeping, and even transporting children to school.
Olivier Linot, who heads the project, said towns are realizing the beasts are well-adapted for certain work and can reduce job stress and dissatisfaction. He expects at least 30 more communities to start using horses next year. Studies about cost and overall carbon footprint are still underway but supporters say the animals beat cars and trucks on a number of criteria, especially for transport work requiring frequent stops over short distances, like emptying trash bins. "It's great for workers and the community to have contact with a living thing," Linot said. "The civil servants are on strike now, but I tell you if they had their hands on a horse they'd be happier -- I've never seen a driver kiss his truck."
Source
Australian Greenie defends graffiti
Australia's Greens are generally far-Leftists and the ideas below are a logical deduction from the Leftist mantra that "There is no such thing as right and wrong"
A Greens MP has launched an extraordinary defence of spray can vandals, saying graffiti brightened up the city and could be attractive. Sue Pennicuik told State Parliament new laws cracking down on graffiti vandals were draconian and unnecessary. She said graffiti vandals were being treated more harshly than dangerous drivers. Declaring that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", Ms Pennicuik said corporate logos were as much a blight on the landscape as graffiti. People who sprayed graffiti should be called graffiti markers, rather than vandals. "A lot of graffiti, including tags, can be political, aesthetically pleasing and thought-provoking," the Upper House MP said in a 48-minute speech. She said there were two points of view about graffiti, and "not everyone hates graffiti and not all graffiti is bad".
Ms Pennicuik's speech, and her bid to amend the new laws, were attacked by her rivals from across the political spectrum, with Labor MP Martin Pakula saying graffiti vandalism was idiotic. "The vast majority of Victorians absolutely detest graffiti. They detest it because it is mindless vandalism," Mr Pakula said. He said that 95 per cent of graffiti was not art. "It is not self-expression, it is not clever, it is not political comment, it is mindless vandalism."
Ms Pennicuik defended her speech, saying she was seeking to highlight concerns about the harsh penalties and police powers under the new laws, which were due to pass the Upper House last night. She said offenders, who were mostly teenagers, could be jailed under the new laws. She said the laws also created a reverse onus of proof, meaning people found with suspected graffiti implements, such as spray cans and stencils, would have to prove they were in possession of them for legitimate reasons. "I'm not saying there shouldn't be any penalties -- there should be -- but that there should be a diversionary program for young offenders. "Graffiti is a problem, I agree. No one likes tags particularly, and I don't like them. But do we want two-year jail terms for 15-year-old kids to be the penalty?"
In her speech, Ms Pennicuik said the cost of cleaning up graffiti should not be the reason for making it a crime. She argued some graffiti walls, such as those in Hosier Lane in the city centre, were tourist attractions. "So what is the price of having clean walls? "This Bill . . . is an over-reaction to the issue of graffiti." Ms Pennicuik also told Parliament that "one could say the graffiti can break up the monotony of urban space". "While in one way of looking at it graffiti is annoying and costly, the other way of looking at it is that it is an acceptable way of expression and it could be tolerated, and is tolerated, in certain circumstances."
Source
***************************************
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
*****************************************
Journal abstract and graph below:
Energy & Environment, 2007, 18(7-8): 1049-1058
A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies
By Loehle, C.
Historical data provide a baseline for judging how anomalous recent temperature changes are and for assessing the degree to which organisms are likely to be adversely affected by current or future warming. Climate histories are commonly reconstructed from a variety of sources, including ice cores, tree rings, and sediment. Tree-ring data, being the most abundant for recent centuries, tend to dominate reconstructions. There are reasons to believe that tree ring data may not properly capture long-term climate changes. In this study, eighteen 2000-year-long series were obtained that were not based on tree ring data. Data in each series were smoothed with a 30-year running mean. All data were then converted to anomalies by subtracting the mean of each series from that series. The overall mean series was then computed by simple averaging. The mean time series shows quite coherent structure. The mean series shows the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA) quite clearly, with the MWP being approximately 0.3°C warmer than 20th century values at these eighteen sites.
Source
Have a Green Thanksgiving
Worries over calories or family squabbles pale in comparison: Make room for a green Thanksgiving, which has nothing to do with broccoli and everything to do with guilt. Scolds and activists have descended upon tomorrow's feast, demanding Americans serve a "sustainable" meal that conforms to a brisk list of eco-conscious dictums. It can boil down to finicky details.
"Serve tap water instead of bottled at your holiday table and cut down on plastic bottles," noted the World Wildlife Fund yesterday in its top-10 tips for a low-impact Thanksgiving. "Serve wine sealed with a cork not a plastic stopper."
The D.C.-based conservation group also recommends online shopping, centerpieces made from backyard brambles, minimal packaging on food items and an attitude adjustment. "Although Thanksgiving is supposed to be a feast, don't prepare more food than will be eaten. American's throw out nearly 40 percent of their food. This year, encourage guests to clean their plates," they advised.
This year, one must practice "local eating for global change," said Canadian-based cookbook author Alisa Smith. If the turkey, veggies, breads and other holiday menu staples are not grown or produced within 100 miles of home, forget it. Such items require too much fossil fuel to get them from field to table, Ms. Smith reasoned — but her logic has serious impact on granny's traditions. Cinnamon and nutmeg are verboten in the pumpkin pie, for example; both spices are imported. And unless a bog is down the block, cranberries can be on the no-no list as well.
More here
An awkward admission from some Warmist scientists
In a Policy Forum article inspired by the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Oppenheimer et al. (2007) write in the 14 September issue of Science that "with the general credibility of the science of climate change established, it is now equally important that policy-makers understand the more extreme possibilities that consensus may exclude or downplay." Why is that? Because, as they continue, "setting aside or minimizing the importance of key structural uncertainties in underlying processes is a frequent outcome of the drive for consensus."
In light of this illuminating admission, we note that the setting aside of key uncertainties in the climate modeling enterprise could well lead to more extreme possibilities at both ends of the climate prognostication spectrum, such that not only may earth's surface air temperature rise somewhat more than is predicted by the current IPCC consensus, it could equally as easily rise somewhat less than that august group has opined. And for the IPCC's current full range prediction of 21st century warming (1.1-6.4øC), somewhat less warming could well turn out to be indistinguishable from no warming at all.
But how could this possibly be? The answer may well be found in the implementation of another important principle enunciated by Oppenheimer et al., i.e., their contention that the basis for quantitative uncertainty estimates "must be broadened [our italics] to give observational, paleoclimatic, or theoretical evidence of poorly understood phenomena comparable weight [our italics] with evidence from numerical modeling."
As a prime example of important paleoclimatic evidence that has been largely ignored by the IPCC, we cite the stunning results of the many studies we continue to identify and analyze in our Medieval Warm Period Project, where each week we highlight the findings of a different paleoclimatic study that reveals the time domain and various climatic characteristics of this probably warmer-than-present century-scale period of a thousand years ago, when the atmosphere's CO2 concentration was only about 70% of what it is today. A repeat performance of whatever caused that earlier warm period (it was clearly not a spike in the air's CO2 concentration) may well be what brought about the Little Ice Age-to-Current Warm Period transition; and its possible full or partial reversal some time over the next 93 years could well result in the mean global air temperature in AD 2100 being equal to -- or even less than -- today's mean air temperature.
Likewise, an example of a poorly understood phenomenon of truly huge climatic significance is the means by which small changes in solar activity are able to bring about significant changes in climate. As Lean (2005) describes it, "a major enigma is that general circulation climate models predict an immutable climate in response to decadal solar variability, whereas surface temperatures, cloud cover, drought, rainfall, tropical cyclones, and forest fires show a definite correlation with solar activity."
In a display of open-mindedness uncharacteristic of most climate alarmists, Oppenheimer et al. go on to suggest that "a special team of authors could be instructed to examine the treatment of unlikely but plausible processes," stating that such analyses might even be conducted by "competing teams of experts." Unfortunately, past findings of the IPCC are already driving massive political and governmental actions throughout the world; and backtracking -- which is what the implementation of Oppenheimer et al.'s suggestions would effectively constitute -- simply cannot be tolerated by those who have invested so much political and economic capital in the reigning climate-change paradigm of CO2-as-global-warming-demon ... unless, of course, people suddenly come to their senses and begin paying attention to all of the pertinent scientific literature, as we attempt to do here at CO2Science.
Source
Environmentalism in an historical context
By Sean Gabb
According to all the newspapers and television stations and all the politicians, we are facing a serious environmental crisis. We are told that global temperatures are rising, and that they are rising because of economic development, and that, unless we make radical changes to the ways in which we live, sea levels will rise and the world in general will become less pleasant.
I am not a scientist, and I am not competent to examine the detailed claims about the nature and extent and causes of global warming. But I believe these claims are all lies. I believe they are the latest attempt by some very nasty people to stop the progress of the human race to unlimited self-improvement.
History and Class Oppression
Until about 250 year ago, the normal situation of humanity was stagnation. There might be ages of improvement, but these hardly ever improved the lives of the poorest, and they were always followed by a decline of economic activity. This was a world in which society was shaped like a broad pyramid-a very small ruling class enjoying fabulous wealth and status, and a great mass or ordinary people at the bottom living in poverty. It was a world in which more than half of all children born died before they reached the age of five, and in which the great majority of ordinary people died in their thirties.
The libertarian revolutions of the 17th century in England led to a sudden increase in general wealth during the 18th century. By around 1800, it was plain that this was an improvement unlike any other before. For the first time, larger and larger numbers of ordinary people were enjoying cheaper and better food and clothing. Other European governments looked on this with envy, as greater national wealth meant greater military power.
But many, both abroad and in England, were concerned about the social and political impact of these developments. They meant that more and more ordinary people were moving about and improving their lives, and they were thinking for themselves, and beginning to question political arrangements that delivered immense differences of wealth and status.
The Reaction
The first reaction against market liberalism was purely conservative. Churches and landowning interests put much effort into defending the old order of things. Look, for example, at this verse from a Church of England hymn:
The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate
The meaning of this is that God had given everyone a certain position in the world, and this position had to be accepted without complaint or attempts at change. Without massive government force behind it, this sort of reaction was a failure in every place it was tried. Even there, it tended to fail. No dungeons in this world, or threats of hellfire in the next, could stifle the news of freedom and enrichment.
And so the next step in reaction was to disguise conservatism as progress. Ideologies were developed that looked progressive, but the effect of which would be to stop all further progress. That is the significance of many kinds of socialism and particularly Marxism. These doctrines spoke about equality and freedom and growing wealth, but were obviously about the exact opposite. Even before the first socialist experiments, liberals were analysing the socialist claims and announcing that a socialist society would be a dictatorship in which the great majority of ordinary people would be made poor again.
This was the result of actually existing socialism in the 20th century. Countries like Russia, East Germany and Czechoslovakia had fast economic development among their stated goals. In fact, the only really growth was in the amount of pollution their factories produced. The only liberty and equality and economic development that have ever been seen have taken place in countries like England and America and Germany and Japan- where people have mostly been left alone to look after themselves and their families.
With the collapse of socialism at the end of the 1980s, it looked for a moment as if all the barriers had been lifted to unlimited improvement for the whole human race. It seemed that we could look forward to a world in which everyone had a motor car and a refrigerator and a telephone.
Environmentalism: The Last Communist Refuge
Then the environmental movement grew big. This had been around since the early 1960s. At first, it concentrated on things like chemical pollution and rapid population growth and how the world would soon run out of oil and other minerals. The problem was that its claims were always proved to be wrong. For example, we were told in the 1960s that population growth would soon lead to mass starvation. In the event, living standards continued to rise faster and faster all over the world. Again, we were told that the oil would run out before the middle of the 1980s. In the event, more and more oil was found, and we now know that we have enough to last for centuries to come. Again we were told in the 1970s that industrialisation was leading to global cooling and that there would soon be another ice age. This also did not happen.
But, since the collapse of socialism, the environmental movement has grown bigger and bigger, and is now arguing for regulations and taxes that would soon stop all further economic growth-particularly in Asia, India, Africa and South America. That is the goal of all this endless propaganda in the media, and all the talk about carbon footprints.
Now, it may be that there really is a problem with the environment. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But I find it historically significant that environmentalism has grown big at the very moment when every other argument against human progress has been disproved. I therefore believe that the claims of the environmentalists are lies. They are an excuse for returning humanity to a dark age of inequality and stagnation.
Source
Back to the horse!
This is a rather good confirmation of the retrograde mentality that Sean Gabb speaks of above
French towns worried about fuel prices, pollution and striking transport workers need look no further than the horse. Horses are a possible alternative for vehicles such as school buses and refuse trucks, say groups eager to pick up on global concerns about eco-friendly transport. "It's all about sustainable development and bringing some humanity back to today's monotonous, machine-driven jobs," Stephane de Veyrac, from the French National Stud Organisation, said at this week's annual conference of French mayors.
De Veyrac's group says it is the first in France to offer consulting on a wide range of horse-powered vehicles that could also haul bottles and aid street sweeping. "It is a serious alternative -- horses are already in use in over 70 towns as replacements for gasoline- and diesel-powered service vehicles," said de Veyrac, pointing to the 'Hippoville' prototype parked in the exhibition hall. With prices starting at 11,562 euros ($17,090), this revamped horse-drawn carriage with disc brakes, signal lamps and removable seating, goes for around the same price as 170 barrels of crude oil.
De Veyrac's group was founded by Louis XIV's Finance Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert to supply war horses for military campaigns. Today the group advises French towns interested in horses for city services. One project in northern France involves a pick-up route for glass bottles in the seaside resort of Trouville. The project is backed by the Regional Horse Promotion Commission, which holds an annual convention in Trouville to promote horses for collecting recyclables, street sweeping, and even transporting children to school.
Olivier Linot, who heads the project, said towns are realizing the beasts are well-adapted for certain work and can reduce job stress and dissatisfaction. He expects at least 30 more communities to start using horses next year. Studies about cost and overall carbon footprint are still underway but supporters say the animals beat cars and trucks on a number of criteria, especially for transport work requiring frequent stops over short distances, like emptying trash bins. "It's great for workers and the community to have contact with a living thing," Linot said. "The civil servants are on strike now, but I tell you if they had their hands on a horse they'd be happier -- I've never seen a driver kiss his truck."
Source
Australian Greenie defends graffiti
Australia's Greens are generally far-Leftists and the ideas below are a logical deduction from the Leftist mantra that "There is no such thing as right and wrong"
A Greens MP has launched an extraordinary defence of spray can vandals, saying graffiti brightened up the city and could be attractive. Sue Pennicuik told State Parliament new laws cracking down on graffiti vandals were draconian and unnecessary. She said graffiti vandals were being treated more harshly than dangerous drivers. Declaring that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", Ms Pennicuik said corporate logos were as much a blight on the landscape as graffiti. People who sprayed graffiti should be called graffiti markers, rather than vandals. "A lot of graffiti, including tags, can be political, aesthetically pleasing and thought-provoking," the Upper House MP said in a 48-minute speech. She said there were two points of view about graffiti, and "not everyone hates graffiti and not all graffiti is bad".
Ms Pennicuik's speech, and her bid to amend the new laws, were attacked by her rivals from across the political spectrum, with Labor MP Martin Pakula saying graffiti vandalism was idiotic. "The vast majority of Victorians absolutely detest graffiti. They detest it because it is mindless vandalism," Mr Pakula said. He said that 95 per cent of graffiti was not art. "It is not self-expression, it is not clever, it is not political comment, it is mindless vandalism."
Ms Pennicuik defended her speech, saying she was seeking to highlight concerns about the harsh penalties and police powers under the new laws, which were due to pass the Upper House last night. She said offenders, who were mostly teenagers, could be jailed under the new laws. She said the laws also created a reverse onus of proof, meaning people found with suspected graffiti implements, such as spray cans and stencils, would have to prove they were in possession of them for legitimate reasons. "I'm not saying there shouldn't be any penalties -- there should be -- but that there should be a diversionary program for young offenders. "Graffiti is a problem, I agree. No one likes tags particularly, and I don't like them. But do we want two-year jail terms for 15-year-old kids to be the penalty?"
In her speech, Ms Pennicuik said the cost of cleaning up graffiti should not be the reason for making it a crime. She argued some graffiti walls, such as those in Hosier Lane in the city centre, were tourist attractions. "So what is the price of having clean walls? "This Bill . . . is an over-reaction to the issue of graffiti." Ms Pennicuik also told Parliament that "one could say the graffiti can break up the monotony of urban space". "While in one way of looking at it graffiti is annoying and costly, the other way of looking at it is that it is an acceptable way of expression and it could be tolerated, and is tolerated, in certain circumstances."
Source
***************************************
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
*****************************************
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Science Has Spoken, Now Shut Up
Post below lifted from Taranto. See the original for links
"The Scientists Speak," reads the headline of the New York Times editorial, which informs us that there is no question the New York Times editorialists are right:
There is no doubt! These are scientists, after all, and they're working for the U.N. They don't make mistakes! Or do they? Here's a news story that also appears in the Times today:
We're so confused. Didn't the scientists speak? How could they have gotten it so wrong? After all, they're scientists! Here's a quote from the Washington Post that may shed some light on the matter:
Could it be that we are watching the same phenomenon with the whole global-warmist hysteria? Our bet would be yes.
More poor science in Science
Given their global warming evangelism, this is no surprise. Story from Australia:
Federal Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran has welcomed research exonerating Australian honeybees in the demise of hundreds of millions of their tiny American cousins. "Someone owes Australian beekeepers a big apology, but we won't hold our breath waiting for it," Mr McGauran said. According to Mr McGauran, the latest genetic evidence debunks claims that imported Australian bees introduced a virus linked to the mysterious disappearance of US honeybees, a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder.
The allegation, made last September in the journal Science, threatened to scupper a burgeoning business worth nearly $5 million to bee exporters because it encouraged Pennsylvania senator Robert Casey to seek a ban on Australian imports. As well, officials with the US Plant Health Inspection Service asked Australian authorities to explain why bans should not be imposed.
CSIRO bee pathologist Denis Anderson said the new findings were solid and should end the looming trade row. "It will take something completely new to get Australian bees back on the hook," he said. The all-clear came from virologist Yanping Chen and geneticist Jay Evans, both with the US Agriculture Department's Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland. In an upcoming issue of American Bee Journal they will report that analysis of honeybee samples collected between 2002 to 2007 showed that the virus, Israeli acute paralysis virus, had been circulating in the US for at least five years.
While US beekeepers reported hive declines as early as 2004, CCD was not identified until the middle of lastyear, prompting imports of Australian bee packages to bolster plummeting populations. Dr Anderson was critical of the damaging Science report, claiming the team misinterpreted its results.
Max Whitten, former head of CSIRO Entomology, added that there was never any evidence that IAPV caused CCD, let alone that it was spread by Australian bees. "It's more likely that stressed hives will succumb to all sorts of benign pathogens, which they could handle if healthy," he suggested. Unlike Australian colonies, US hives are stressed by poor nutrition, pesticides and parasites. As well, hives are trucked long distances to pollinate crops, reducing bee fitness.
Dr Anderson said what the Science paper showed was that CCD was linked to Nosema, a widespread honeybee disease. "But it was overlooked as the cause due to lack of experience and knowledge of general bee pathology on the part of the researchers," Dr Anderson said. "This can't reflect well on a journal such as Science and (its) selection ofreferees."
Source
More Weather Station Shenanigans Media Won't Report
Will a television news magazine like "60 Minutes," "20/20," or "Dateline" ever devote an entire segment exclusively to the horrid state of America's weather stations? Given the incessant reports of rising temperatures threatening to kill us all, wouldn't a lengthy expos‚ into the accuracy of the devices at the heart of the matter be of interest to a population frightened to drive their cars, heat their homes, and - God forbid - exhale? Consider the following information shared by weather station analyst extraordinaire Anthony Watts, published Sunday at Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit, and try to figure out why this isn't one of the hottest stories in town.
Imagine that: the weather station in the hottest part of America is actually on a roof. Shouldn't this be a wonderful feature in a potentially award-winning television expose? I guess like an inebriated Britney Spears, this would expose too much. Readers are highly encouraged to review the entire piece while they envision Katie Couric traveling around the country uncovering the farce that is our nation's weather stations.or not.
Source
ABC Again Ignores Liberal Connections of Global Warming Alarmists
Sam Champion hyperventilated about the threat of extreme weather on Monday's "Good Morning America" and, once again, ignored the leftist connections of two cited experts. Scientists Michael Oppenheimer and Daniel Schrag, both of whom have vigorously slammed Republicans in the past, appeared in the segment to warn that global warming would only continue to cause unusual weather patterns as long as greenhouse gases keep increasing.
GMA identified Oppenheimer simply by his connection as a scientist for Princeton University. However, he has previously slammed Republican disagreement about climate change as "uniformed rambling." In the piece, Schrag scarily warned, "It's hard to overstate how big a change [climate change] could be in the weather we experience every day." This is same man who, in a Boston Globe column from December 2006, smeared GOP Senator James Inhofe, then the Chair of a Senate environmental committee, for using skeptical witnesses that Schrag derided as "a gathering of liars and charlatans, sponsored by those industries who want to protect their profits." To further make the point, the article is entitled, "On a Swift Boat to a Warmer World."
In October, the ABC program featured Oppenheimer gushing over Al Gore and his Nobel Peace Prize victory. That segment was even more misleading, as GMA provided no identification at all. Later that month, Oppenheimer appeared on NBC's "Nightly News" and claimed climate change could cause disasters such as the California wildfires. (NBC also failed to disclose his liberal connections.) Is it really too much to ask that the networks stop attempting to pass off environmental activists as non-partisan observers?
ABC hyped the segment, which focused on extreme weather around the world, within the context of a new United Nations report on global warming. Co-host Robin Roberts observed that "some" are calling it "definitive." Of course, Champion made no mention of any possibility that these weather events could be cyclical or that some might not be as a result of climate change. Skepticism on this issue is readily available. For instance, Investors Business Daily reported on November 13 that in a new study, NASA researchers found that many changes in the Arctic Ocean are, in fact, cyclical:
This study, however, went unmentioned by Sam Champion.
More here
The Gore profit machine rumbles on
As NewsBusters readers are well aware, we have for months been chronicling Nobel Laureate Al Gore's profit motive concerning the advancement of climate change hysteria. Last Monday, it was announced that the Global Warmingist-in-Chief had been hired by Silicon Valley's most prestigious venture capital firm. At the time, the implication was that Gore would assist Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in finding new, unknown eco-friendly companies to invest in.
According to Fox News's "The Journal Editorial Report," Gore's position with Kleiner Perkins may be to get a currently stalled energy bill through Congress that would end up helping companies the VC group has already invested in.
To put this in simpler terms, the VC group Gore just joined has a number of investments in so-called "green" companies, but has yet to be able to bring any to the market. The primary way such a firm makes money is when companies it owns a significant piece of go public on one of America's stock exchanges or NASDAQ. As Fortune magazine reported last Tuesday, Kleiner Perkins has yet to do this (emphasis added): "Five years after Kleiner Perkins made its first green investment, the firm hasn't had one "exit" -- VC-speak for an IPO or a sale of a company that validates the investment thesis." As such, Kleiner Perkins has money invested that has yet to pan out. And, with Congress currently debating both an energy bill and a global warming bill, the future of KP's investments might be at stake. Enter former Vice President Al Gore:
Unfortunately, this was not a side of this issue prominently discussed by the mainstream media that not only adore the former Vice President, but have fallen hook, line, and sinker for his charade.
In a related matter, it was indeed fascinating to see how many press outlets last week shared with their patrons that Gore was donating his Kleiner Perkins salary to his climate change awareness foundation. At the time, NewsBusters noted that Gore's salary would end up representing a small portion of his actual compensation. Surprisingly, one of the versions of this announcement published by the Associated Press last Monday actually addressed this inconvenient truth (emphasis added):
I guess this got passed most media outlets, including Oliver Willis of Media Matters. Color me unsurprised.
In the end, this leads to one question: When will members of the press - who are always skeptical about the motives of businessmen, CEOs, and folks on Wall Street - begin to seriously examine the financial ties that folks like Gore have to inciting climate hysteria? Is this just too complex an issue for these people, or is it impossible for them to do anything that might undermine their political agendas?
More here
Britain: GORDON BROWN IS THE LEAST MAD ON CLIMATE
Well, UK PM, Gordon Brown, has at last shared with us his thoughts on climate change: ‘PM outlines climate action plan’ (BBC Online Politics News, November 19). One doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. It is truly pathetic. I, for once, feel quite sorry (crocodile tears, of course) for those who genuinely fear ‘global warming’ - Brown’s words are full of waffling warmth, while the proposed action is either ludicrous or non-existent:
A ‘Green hotline’ and web site to advise people on how to be ‘good’; A ban on one-use plastic bags. As it happens, I am in favour of this, but what it has to do with climate change beats me; And some help to improve energy efficiency in poorer areas. Er, that’s it!
In the meantime, the Government department dealing with the environment (Defra) is to suffer an urgent budget cut of £270 million (see: ‘Reality, Rhetoric, And Risk’, November 17), and there have been recent cuts to the New Millennium Grants for installing energy-saving measures in homes.
The rest of Brown’s rhetoric is just crowd-conning hot air (lots of classic Brownian targets, but no action), with a hint that new nuclear power may lurk somewhere as a hidden ‘renewable’ - how else is the UK going to meet its daft ‘renewable’ targets? Even the Beeb’s Roger Harrabin describes Brown’s comments on ‘renewables’ as "staggering"!
The words ‘smokescreen’ (I first typed a Freudian ‘smokesgreen’) and ‘mirrors’ cross one’s mind.
Yet, I have sensed this all along. Brown will do nothing to harm the British economy nor to hurt the disadvantaged. Indeed, in the end, he may prove to be the man for us climate realists. In practice, he is the least mad of all UK politicians over climate. I don’t think, at heart, he is really interested.
By contrast, who knows what Tory toff, ‘Dave’ ‘Notting-Hill-Green’ Cameron, will do, while the Liberal Democrats are simply dire and dangerous wet amateurs, who should be kept as far away from power as possible. Liberal is the last thing they are, and they are hyper-hysterical over climate change.
What a happy choice faces us! The real question is: “Who will do the least damage economically and politically in pursuing mad climate-change policies?”
Source
IS INCREASING CO2 A DANGER OR A BENEFIT?
Am email from Prof. Bob Carter [bob.carter@jcu.edu.au], Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia
David Whitehouse has contributed another insightful essay [See immediately below], and I am confident that most of your readers will agree with the thoughts that he expresses. However, I must take exception to one sentence, which is:
"Clearly the Earth’s natural state is not to have so much CO2 in its atmosphere and it would be prudent to reduce it".
The Earth has no "natural" level of CO2 for Earth's atmosphere. It is estimated that past CO2 levels have varied up to 20 times the present level, and there is no evidence that higher levels (and especially moderately higher levels such as doubling) have been ecologically "damaging".
Quite the contrary, in fact. As you and David will be well aware, atmospheric CO2 is a stimulant to plant growth and to more efficient plant use of water. Additionally, extra CO2 probably has a mild (NOT dangerous) warming effect, which on the precautionary principle is a definite benefit at this stage of the natural climate cycle.
In summary, (i) there is no such a thing as a "natural" level of CO2 in the atmosphere, and (ii) while no one can predict exactly all the consequences of increasing atmospheric CO2, the odds strongly favour it being beneficial. From which it follows that claims that reducing human CO2 emissions would be "prudent" are false.
Finally, anyone with doubts as to the benefit of mild warming might like to consult the views of the people in the southern hemisphere who have just experienced an extremely harsh winter, or those persons in the northern hemisphere who appear to be about to receive the same.
***************************************
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
*****************************************
Post below lifted from Taranto. See the original for links
"The Scientists Speak," reads the headline of the New York Times editorial, which informs us that there is no question the New York Times editorialists are right:
The world's scientists have done their job. Now it's time for world leaders, starting with President Bush, to do theirs. That is the urgent message at the core of the latest--and the most powerful--report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 2,500 scientists who collectively constitute the world's most authoritative voice on global warming. Released in Spain over the weekend, the report leaves no doubt that man-made emissions from the burning of fossil fuels (and, to a lesser extent, deforestation) have been responsible for the steady rise in atmospheric temperatures.
There is no doubt! These are scientists, after all, and they're working for the U.N. They don't make mistakes! Or do they? Here's a news story that also appears in the Times today:
The United Nations' AIDS-fighting agency plans to issue a report today acknowledging that it overestimated the size of the epidemic and that new infections with the deadly virus have been dropping each year since they peaked in the late 1990s.
We're so confused. Didn't the scientists speak? How could they have gotten it so wrong? After all, they're scientists! Here's a quote from the Washington Post that may shed some light on the matter:
"There was a tendency toward alarmism, and that fit perhaps a certain fundraising agenda," said Helen Epstein, author of "The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS." "I hope these new numbers will help refocus the response in a more pragmatic way."
Could it be that we are watching the same phenomenon with the whole global-warmist hysteria? Our bet would be yes.
More poor science in Science
Given their global warming evangelism, this is no surprise. Story from Australia:
Federal Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran has welcomed research exonerating Australian honeybees in the demise of hundreds of millions of their tiny American cousins. "Someone owes Australian beekeepers a big apology, but we won't hold our breath waiting for it," Mr McGauran said. According to Mr McGauran, the latest genetic evidence debunks claims that imported Australian bees introduced a virus linked to the mysterious disappearance of US honeybees, a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder.
The allegation, made last September in the journal Science, threatened to scupper a burgeoning business worth nearly $5 million to bee exporters because it encouraged Pennsylvania senator Robert Casey to seek a ban on Australian imports. As well, officials with the US Plant Health Inspection Service asked Australian authorities to explain why bans should not be imposed.
CSIRO bee pathologist Denis Anderson said the new findings were solid and should end the looming trade row. "It will take something completely new to get Australian bees back on the hook," he said. The all-clear came from virologist Yanping Chen and geneticist Jay Evans, both with the US Agriculture Department's Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland. In an upcoming issue of American Bee Journal they will report that analysis of honeybee samples collected between 2002 to 2007 showed that the virus, Israeli acute paralysis virus, had been circulating in the US for at least five years.
While US beekeepers reported hive declines as early as 2004, CCD was not identified until the middle of lastyear, prompting imports of Australian bee packages to bolster plummeting populations. Dr Anderson was critical of the damaging Science report, claiming the team misinterpreted its results.
Max Whitten, former head of CSIRO Entomology, added that there was never any evidence that IAPV caused CCD, let alone that it was spread by Australian bees. "It's more likely that stressed hives will succumb to all sorts of benign pathogens, which they could handle if healthy," he suggested. Unlike Australian colonies, US hives are stressed by poor nutrition, pesticides and parasites. As well, hives are trucked long distances to pollinate crops, reducing bee fitness.
Dr Anderson said what the Science paper showed was that CCD was linked to Nosema, a widespread honeybee disease. "But it was overlooked as the cause due to lack of experience and knowledge of general bee pathology on the part of the researchers," Dr Anderson said. "This can't reflect well on a journal such as Science and (its) selection ofreferees."
Source
More Weather Station Shenanigans Media Won't Report
Will a television news magazine like "60 Minutes," "20/20," or "Dateline" ever devote an entire segment exclusively to the horrid state of America's weather stations? Given the incessant reports of rising temperatures threatening to kill us all, wouldn't a lengthy expos‚ into the accuracy of the devices at the heart of the matter be of interest to a population frightened to drive their cars, heat their homes, and - God forbid - exhale? Consider the following information shared by weather station analyst extraordinaire Anthony Watts, published Sunday at Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit, and try to figure out why this isn't one of the hottest stories in town.
I decided to survey one of the hottest and most remote USHCN weather stations in the USA, Death Valley.... The day started out in Baker, California, at the southern entrance to Death Valley. Appropriately, they have a Starbuck's there, as well as what was once billed as "the worlds tallest thermometer" which has sadly been converted from a desert information center into the "worlds tallest mini-market". Given that it's over concrete, asphalt, and the roof of a mini-mart, I've going to give it a CRN rating of "5?. Of course that's what they want here, hotter temperatures, because that's part of the tourist attraction....
I've never seen a pint sized "Stevenson Screen" mounted on a rooftop tower before. It was on an adobe building that looked like it was once a motel. You can see the shadow of the tower on the southernmost rooftop in the Google Earth link. I guess they Like it hot here, and will go to lengths to make new highs. What better way than to put a station on a roof in Death Valley?
Imagine that: the weather station in the hottest part of America is actually on a roof. Shouldn't this be a wonderful feature in a potentially award-winning television expose? I guess like an inebriated Britney Spears, this would expose too much. Readers are highly encouraged to review the entire piece while they envision Katie Couric traveling around the country uncovering the farce that is our nation's weather stations.or not.
Source
ABC Again Ignores Liberal Connections of Global Warming Alarmists
Sam Champion hyperventilated about the threat of extreme weather on Monday's "Good Morning America" and, once again, ignored the leftist connections of two cited experts. Scientists Michael Oppenheimer and Daniel Schrag, both of whom have vigorously slammed Republicans in the past, appeared in the segment to warn that global warming would only continue to cause unusual weather patterns as long as greenhouse gases keep increasing.
GMA identified Oppenheimer simply by his connection as a scientist for Princeton University. However, he has previously slammed Republican disagreement about climate change as "uniformed rambling." In the piece, Schrag scarily warned, "It's hard to overstate how big a change [climate change] could be in the weather we experience every day." This is same man who, in a Boston Globe column from December 2006, smeared GOP Senator James Inhofe, then the Chair of a Senate environmental committee, for using skeptical witnesses that Schrag derided as "a gathering of liars and charlatans, sponsored by those industries who want to protect their profits." To further make the point, the article is entitled, "On a Swift Boat to a Warmer World."
In October, the ABC program featured Oppenheimer gushing over Al Gore and his Nobel Peace Prize victory. That segment was even more misleading, as GMA provided no identification at all. Later that month, Oppenheimer appeared on NBC's "Nightly News" and claimed climate change could cause disasters such as the California wildfires. (NBC also failed to disclose his liberal connections.) Is it really too much to ask that the networks stop attempting to pass off environmental activists as non-partisan observers?
ABC hyped the segment, which focused on extreme weather around the world, within the context of a new United Nations report on global warming. Co-host Robin Roberts observed that "some" are calling it "definitive." Of course, Champion made no mention of any possibility that these weather events could be cyclical or that some might not be as a result of climate change. Skepticism on this issue is readily available. For instance, Investors Business Daily reported on November 13 that in a new study, NASA researchers found that many changes in the Arctic Ocean are, in fact, cyclical:
From 2002 to 2006, scientists and researchers from NASA and the University of Washington's Polar Science Center at the Applied Physics Laboratory observed a meaningful ongoing reversal in Arctic Ocean circulation. The cause is atmospheric circulation changes that vary in decade-long periods and the effect is, well, let the scientist who led the study explain it: "Our study confirms many changes seen in upper Arctic Ocean circulation in the 1990s were mostly decadal in nature, rather than trends caused by global warming," said the University of Washington's James Morison.
This study, however, went unmentioned by Sam Champion.
More here
The Gore profit machine rumbles on
As NewsBusters readers are well aware, we have for months been chronicling Nobel Laureate Al Gore's profit motive concerning the advancement of climate change hysteria. Last Monday, it was announced that the Global Warmingist-in-Chief had been hired by Silicon Valley's most prestigious venture capital firm. At the time, the implication was that Gore would assist Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in finding new, unknown eco-friendly companies to invest in.
According to Fox News's "The Journal Editorial Report," Gore's position with Kleiner Perkins may be to get a currently stalled energy bill through Congress that would end up helping companies the VC group has already invested in.
Freeman, WSJ Assistant Editorial Page Editor: His timing could be perfect for Kleiner, because the firm has backed more than a dozen of these clean technologies, but they haven't been able to exit any yet. So as they look to cash out, a big, big issue for them is the energy bill, now stalled in Congress, with lots of subsidies and favorable regulations for these companies and their portfolios. So Al Gore--Mr. Gore is showing up at a critical time here for the company.
To put this in simpler terms, the VC group Gore just joined has a number of investments in so-called "green" companies, but has yet to be able to bring any to the market. The primary way such a firm makes money is when companies it owns a significant piece of go public on one of America's stock exchanges or NASDAQ. As Fortune magazine reported last Tuesday, Kleiner Perkins has yet to do this (emphasis added): "Five years after Kleiner Perkins made its first green investment, the firm hasn't had one "exit" -- VC-speak for an IPO or a sale of a company that validates the investment thesis." As such, Kleiner Perkins has money invested that has yet to pan out. And, with Congress currently debating both an energy bill and a global warming bill, the future of KP's investments might be at stake. Enter former Vice President Al Gore:
Paul Gigot, Host: Wait a minute. You're saying that this is not necessarily all about venture capitalism, but it may be about venture politics in Washington?
Freeman: Well, as far as why they make certain investments and how, I'll leave that to experts, but what's absolutely clear is that the stakes are huge for the companies they've invested in, in the green tech space in the Washington energy bill, if it ever happens.
Gigot: What companies are those? Are they in ethanol, solar?
Freeman: Two companies in ethanol. Another company that is biofuels, claiming to be creating something even better than ethanol, which probably won't be hard. Whether it can be better than gasoline is the tough challenge. Then you have two companies in solar, another one in geothermal.
Gigot: Wow. So 60 votes in the Senate may be Al Gore's real game here if can he do something in Washington to get that energy bill through the Senate.
Unfortunately, this was not a side of this issue prominently discussed by the mainstream media that not only adore the former Vice President, but have fallen hook, line, and sinker for his charade.
In a related matter, it was indeed fascinating to see how many press outlets last week shared with their patrons that Gore was donating his Kleiner Perkins salary to his climate change awareness foundation. At the time, NewsBusters noted that Gore's salary would end up representing a small portion of his actual compensation. Surprisingly, one of the versions of this announcement published by the Associated Press last Monday actually addressed this inconvenient truth (emphasis added):
Gore promised to donate 100 percent of his salary as a Kleiner Perkins partner to the Alliance for Climate Protection, the Palo Alto-based think tank he founded to focus on accelerating policy solutions to the climate crisis.
The donation does not include stock options. Typically, a tiny fraction of a venture capitalist's compensation is salary; the vast majority of wealth comes from sale of stock options when the companies the firm invests in are sold to the public.
"It's one of the benefits of not being in the public sector anymore," Gore said with a laugh.
I guess this got passed most media outlets, including Oliver Willis of Media Matters. Color me unsurprised.
In the end, this leads to one question: When will members of the press - who are always skeptical about the motives of businessmen, CEOs, and folks on Wall Street - begin to seriously examine the financial ties that folks like Gore have to inciting climate hysteria? Is this just too complex an issue for these people, or is it impossible for them to do anything that might undermine their political agendas?
More here
Britain: GORDON BROWN IS THE LEAST MAD ON CLIMATE
Well, UK PM, Gordon Brown, has at last shared with us his thoughts on climate change: ‘PM outlines climate action plan’ (BBC Online Politics News, November 19). One doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. It is truly pathetic. I, for once, feel quite sorry (crocodile tears, of course) for those who genuinely fear ‘global warming’ - Brown’s words are full of waffling warmth, while the proposed action is either ludicrous or non-existent:
A ‘Green hotline’ and web site to advise people on how to be ‘good’; A ban on one-use plastic bags. As it happens, I am in favour of this, but what it has to do with climate change beats me; And some help to improve energy efficiency in poorer areas. Er, that’s it!
In the meantime, the Government department dealing with the environment (Defra) is to suffer an urgent budget cut of £270 million (see: ‘Reality, Rhetoric, And Risk’, November 17), and there have been recent cuts to the New Millennium Grants for installing energy-saving measures in homes.
The rest of Brown’s rhetoric is just crowd-conning hot air (lots of classic Brownian targets, but no action), with a hint that new nuclear power may lurk somewhere as a hidden ‘renewable’ - how else is the UK going to meet its daft ‘renewable’ targets? Even the Beeb’s Roger Harrabin describes Brown’s comments on ‘renewables’ as "staggering"!
The words ‘smokescreen’ (I first typed a Freudian ‘smokesgreen’) and ‘mirrors’ cross one’s mind.
Yet, I have sensed this all along. Brown will do nothing to harm the British economy nor to hurt the disadvantaged. Indeed, in the end, he may prove to be the man for us climate realists. In practice, he is the least mad of all UK politicians over climate. I don’t think, at heart, he is really interested.
By contrast, who knows what Tory toff, ‘Dave’ ‘Notting-Hill-Green’ Cameron, will do, while the Liberal Democrats are simply dire and dangerous wet amateurs, who should be kept as far away from power as possible. Liberal is the last thing they are, and they are hyper-hysterical over climate change.
What a happy choice faces us! The real question is: “Who will do the least damage economically and politically in pursuing mad climate-change policies?”
Source
IS INCREASING CO2 A DANGER OR A BENEFIT?
Am email from Prof. Bob Carter [bob.carter@jcu.edu.au], Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia
David Whitehouse has contributed another insightful essay [See immediately below], and I am confident that most of your readers will agree with the thoughts that he expresses. However, I must take exception to one sentence, which is:
"Clearly the Earth’s natural state is not to have so much CO2 in its atmosphere and it would be prudent to reduce it".
The Earth has no "natural" level of CO2 for Earth's atmosphere. It is estimated that past CO2 levels have varied up to 20 times the present level, and there is no evidence that higher levels (and especially moderately higher levels such as doubling) have been ecologically "damaging".
Quite the contrary, in fact. As you and David will be well aware, atmospheric CO2 is a stimulant to plant growth and to more efficient plant use of water. Additionally, extra CO2 probably has a mild (NOT dangerous) warming effect, which on the precautionary principle is a definite benefit at this stage of the natural climate cycle.
In summary, (i) there is no such a thing as a "natural" level of CO2 in the atmosphere, and (ii) while no one can predict exactly all the consequences of increasing atmospheric CO2, the odds strongly favour it being beneficial. From which it follows that claims that reducing human CO2 emissions would be "prudent" are false.
Finally, anyone with doubts as to the benefit of mild warming might like to consult the views of the people in the southern hemisphere who have just experienced an extremely harsh winter, or those persons in the northern hemisphere who appear to be about to receive the same.
***************************************
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
*****************************************
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Some things the IPCC has ignored
An email from David Whitehouse [david@davidwhitehouse.com]
Some media commentators have told us that the IPCC's "Synthesis" report has settled the science of global warming beyond doubt and that alternative approaches or indeed modifications to the CO2 greenhouse warming effect have lost the scientific argument. Certainly the working hypothesis of CO2 induced global warming is a good one that stands on good physical principles but let us not pretend our understanding extends too far or that the working hypothesis is a sufficient explanation for what is going on.
Clearly the world of the past 30 years is warmer than the previous decades and there is abundant evidence (in the northern hemisphere at least) that the world is responding to those elevated temperatures, though not yet the Polar Bears.
However, it was a pity the Synthesis report did not look in more detail at the recent warming trend the Earth has experienced - that has taken place since about 1980, as this and the rising CO2 levels are surely at the heart of the problem. Had this warm period not occurred we would have no talk of global warming and perhaps, as happened in the 1970's, we would fear a new Ice Age! This omission means that, contrary to what Ban Ki-Moon said, the Synthesis report has not answered so many questions relating to global warming or what will happen in the future. It seems that one can only understand what is going on (and make predictions) if one's vision is narrow and one talks in soundbites.
The fact that the recent warming period can be divided into two distinct periods is surely instructive and has a direct bearing on the IPCC's projections for the future and its mitigation strategies. The period 1980 -98 was one of rapid warming - a temperature anomaly of about 0.6 degrees C or 0.3 deg C per decade (CO2 rose from 340ppm to 370ppm). Since then the global temperature has been flat (whilst the CO2 has risen from 370ppm to 380ppm) meaning that the global temperature is about 0.3 deg less than it would have been had the rapid increase continued. (This leads me to suggest, slightly tongue-in-cheek, that there has been global cooling in the past decade as a decrease in the increase of temperature is a cooling!) The 1980 - 98 increase is generally similar to the increase seen between 1910 and 1940 which was 0.6 deg C in 30 years. It may be that the current flatlining of global temperature will be similar to that seen between 1940 and 1980 in that it will be followed by another increase (as the UK's Met Office believes will commence in 2009) but we don't know.
Incidentally, all the indications are that the global temperature of 2007 will be the coolest since 2000. This is interesting as there have been no significant volcanic events and no La Nina cooling.
How can it be that the atmosphere has responded so differently to a steady increase in CO2 levels and the constant temperature forcing that implies? As I argued in a previous post to CCNet (25th October 2007) the flat temperature of the past decade is difficult to explain. Adding reflective aerosols to the atmosphere (a byproduct of greenhouse gas emissions or volcanoes) is contrived and requires unlikely circumstances. Other explanations such as the ocean cooling effect of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation or the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation are also difficult to adjust so that they exactly compensate for the increasing upward temperature drag of rising CO2.
Also disappointing in the IPCC report was the lack of mention of the uncertainties involving solar effects and what they could mean for future predictions of global warming. There is a growing school of thought that suggests that the next solar cycle, cycle 24, could be weak and possibly the start of a prolonged period of low activity. There are certainly signs of a decline after a significant increase in solar activity throughout most of the last century. In the past when this has occurred the Earth has cooled though by what mechanism is unknown.
Despite what has been said the Sun is still an important factor to consider, more so if the temperature flatlining continues. It was thought (by climatologists) that solar driven climate change was too small to be detected but recent studies of decadal solar influences show they can be detected. Mostly their influence is small but there are huge differences that point to unknown amplification effects.
In the past few years we have been learning more and more about such things as differential solar heating, trade wind effects, solar induced upwelling of cooler water in the oceans and the fact that solar activity alters the interaction between the Earth's surface and the atmosphere in driving fundamental convection cells. In the past decade we have also discovered that the cloudy lower atmosphere absorbs more visible and IR radiation than previously thought. It has also been realised relatively recently that the IR from the sun varies more than visible. In addition, the unexpectedly large global decadal cycle of 0.1 deg C seen at an altitude of 2 km cannot easily be explained.
The point is that we cannot predict the future until we understand these things. Clearly the Earth's natural state is not to have so much CO2 in its atmosphere and it would be prudent to reduce it. But let's acknowledge the considerable scientific uncertainties and differentiate between the effects of increasing global temperatures on the one hand and increasing CO2 levels on the other.
I have heard it said, by scientists, journalists and politicians, that the time for debate is over and that further scientific debate only causes delay in action. As scientists we must never bend our desire to know what is going on to any political cause, however noble. The science is fascinating, the ramifications profound, but we are fools or perhaps politicians if we convince ourselves that we know more than we do and when we are satisfied to describe such a complicated system in a soundbite.
Greenie people-hate on display again
Halting population growth in developing countries should be part of a global strategy to reduce mankind's impact on the environment, according to an eminent expatriate Australian scientist. Immediate past president of the Royal Society, Professor Lord Robert May said that, given the threat of climate change, a declining global population was "a prerequisite" if humanity was to achieve a sustainable ecological footprint in the future. Addressing the Lowy Institute in Sydney last night, Lord May said a priority was educating and empowering women, "particularly in those cultures where this is not currently the case".
Lord May, a former chief scientific adviser to the British government who was made a companion of the Order of Australia in 1998, said this would be assisted by achieving universal primary school education and promoting gender equality. The United Nations estimates 700 million women, or two thirds of all those married or in stable unions, use some method of contraception. "In my view, religious beliefs or other ideological prejudices prompt some major international organisations to oppose contraception, forbidding distribution of condoms or even advice about fertility control," Lord May said.
He said it was encouraging that in the past year global fertility rates fell below replacement levels for the first time in recorded history, with the average female now having slightly less than one female child. Global population growth is predicted to increase to 9 billion by 2050, driven by strong growth in developing countries, while declining birth rates in developed countries create their own inter-generational problems.
Lord May warned that cutting population alone would not address environmental problems, as smaller populations tended to be associated with increasing standards of living and higher environmental impacts per capita. He warned of the growing threat of conflicts and mass movements of people as the world's population fought over limited water supplies and other resources. "All this rolls together with rapid and continuing advances in information technology, which simultaneously makes things better and worse," he said. "Better because we can more easily and effectively co-ordinate action, once motivated to do so; worse because in such a global village the massive inequities between groups are clearly exposed."
Lord May warned that the re-emergence of fundamentalism in the world was a reaction against the liberating force of the new information age.
Source
GREEN LOGIC: 'NATURE' ENDORSES HUMAN EXTINCTION
In the latest Nature, Chris Thomas says:
Thomas is "optimistic" that humans and any descendants with a remotely similar population or resource-intensive technology will be extinct in a million years. Yet if a plague, for example, were to produce this outcome within the next ten years, I'm pretty sure most everyone would see this as a catastrophe of the highest possible order. So how does this become a good thing if it happens in the next million years?
Source
BRAVE GREEN WORLD: WHO NEEDS ASTRONOMY? THOSE GUYS MIGHT DISCOVER SOMETHING AWKWARD
Much safer to spend the money on a metastasizing bureaucracy
British astronomers were last night shocked by a sudden funding cut that will prevent them having access to two of the world's most advanced telescopes. A Government funding council yesterday announced it would pull out of the Gemini Observatory - twin 26ft telescopes in Hawaii and Chile which together can be used to observe the entire sky. The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) said it was pulling out of the observatory, in which Britain has a 23 per cent stake, despite the Government having invested 35 million pounds in building it.
Prof Michael Rowan-Robinson, President of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), said: "This decision is a serious mistake and a shock to all of us. "If it goes ahead it will deny UK scientists access to large telescopes in the northern hemisphere and hinder their ability to study almost half the sky. I call on the STFC to rethink this proposal."
FULL STORY here
POOR INDIE: DAILY DOOM DOESN'T SELL
The Independent, the `compact' UK newspaper known as the Indie (the Independent on Sunday being the Sindie), which is infamous for its doom-laden front pages on `global warming' (and many other PC topics), is clearly in trouble. I have just been trawling through a few interesting reports and facts:
Writing in The Observer (November 11), Peter Preston comments that "the relaunched, more anorexic Independent on Sunday is 8.37 per cent off October 2006 (with only 132,000 UK readers prepared to stump up 1.80 pounds)" and that, at the newsstand, the "Independent, with not much of a net presence at all, is down 6.72 per cent in a year." The circulation of the Indie in August, 2007 was a mere 240,116 [according to the UK ABC (Audited Bureau of Circulations)], a 5.37% drop from November 2006, and way, way below The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The Times.
Moreover, unlike The Guardian (c. 18 million unique users), the poor Indie is unlikely to be saved by its website, which must be one of the dullest in the world. The word `anorexic' again crosses one's mind.
And now, today, the `Financial Section' of The Times reveals that "Denis O'Brien, the Irish telecoms billionaire, has called on Sir Anthony O'Reilly to sell The Independent newspaper and resign as the chief executive of the company behind the loss-making London-based title. `The Independent has to go, as do other vanity projects,' Mr O'Brien told The Times in an uncompromising interview."
Well, I never like the loss of media and debating outlets, but I have to say that the demise, if that were ever to happen, of the Indie would bring fewer tears to my eyes than most. As a purveyor of gloom and doom, it has been second to none. Even one environmentalist confided to me that, when on the tube or the bus, she felt she had to read it hidden between less lurid covers.
Still, it would be a pity. Over the years, the Indie has proved a rich seam for bloggers and commentators alike - even beats the old Guardian, and that is saying something these days. Clearly doom and gloom on a daily basis doesn't in the end sell. After all, why bother to read a newspaper when the triffids are lurking behind every page?
Source
A fit of peak
The doom-laden vision of a post-oil world put forward in a radical new documentary is as crude as the black stuff that gushes from the ground
With crude oil prices pushing up towards $100 per barrel, it's a good time to release a documentary that argues we're in imminent danger from dwindling oil supply. According to A Crude Awakening, demand for oil is accelerating while supply has peaked and will shortly go into rapid decline. The result will be social disruption on a scale unseen since the Great Depression. Sounds scary - but in reality these arguments seem as crude as the black stuff gushing from the ground.
The film, made by Swiss journalist Basil Gelpke and Irish producer Ray McCormack, is a diatribe against the evils of an oil-based economy. Opening with a narration befitting a horror movie, we are told that oil is the `devil's excrement' and the `blood of the earth'. Through interviews with a number of experts, activists and politicians, Gelpke and McCormack argue that developed economies, most notably the USA, are utterly dependent on oil. Farming, transportation, plastics - in fact, the production of pretty much everything - depends on a supply of oil. For example, every calorie of food energy we produce requires 10 calories of energy inputs - mostly oil. The vast majority of travel, too, is powered by oil pumped from the ground.
Supply and demand
The problem, according to the film, is that production may have peaked or is just about to do so. The world is currently using roughly 85million barrels of oil per day (1). (A barrel of oil is 42 US gallons or 159 litres.) Demand is booming due to rapid economic growth in China and India and steadily increasing demand in the developed world. The filmmakers argue that there have been no new big oilfield discoveries since the late 1960s when huge quantities of oil were discovered in the North Sea and Alaska.
As it happens, the film's opening in the UK coincided with an announcement by the Brazilian government of a new offshore field, Tupi Sul, that could ultimately provide eight billion barrels of oil. But this will not come fully on-stream for a few years and will only provide a small portion of the world's growing oil needs each year (2). In fact, the total oil from this field would only supply current levels of world consumption for about three months. Worse, according to the film, the declared remaining reserves of oil in many members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) may be greatly overstated. In the past, OPEC members have had an interest in exaggerating their remaining stocks since OPEC production quotas have been based on declared reserves.
The really big fields with long potential reserves are in the Middle East - hardly a stable region. This question of stability informs comments in the film by Stanford politics professor Terry Lynn Karl, who provides a fairly outrageous example of the war-for-oil thesis. Karl believes that the two Gulf Wars were driven by a desire to seize and control oil reserves - which is slightly bizarre, given that Iraq's oil could more easily and cheaply have been controlled by propping up Saddam rather than removing him. But this war-for-oil thesis apparently knows no bounds, with Karl glibly suggesting that everything from the civil war in Sudan to the two World Wars can be put down `in part' to a scramble for oil.
Solving the problem
The film is already showing its age, however. Much of the discussion in the film is about how there is more oil under the ground, but that it is not economically viable to dig it up. As one US oil worker notes, in incredulous tones, the oil price would have to be $50 a barrel for it to make sense. But since prices have now shot up to nearer $100 a barrel, a range of possibilities opens up, even if current high nominal prices are to some extent a product of the weak dollar.
Suddenly, getting that oil out of the ground is good business. Other opportunities arise: expensive exploration in relatively uncharted territories starts to make sense because the gamble could have such a huge pay-off; exploration methods themselves can improve; finding ways to recover a greater percentage of the oil in any particular field would be a boon; producing liquid fuels from the world's abundant stocks of coal - pointless when oil itself is cheap - is now practical and economic. For all the severe limitations of the free market, it is quite clear that a rising oil price provides strong incentives to explore both oil-based and non-oil avenues for future energy production.
But the filmmakers seem uninterested in the possibility that declining oil stocks are a problem that could be solved. `The demand is so huge there is nothing we can imagine to replace oil in those quantities', suggests David L Goodstein, professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology. Instead, A Crude Awakening provides a litany of disastrous consequences that must inevitably result from peak oil. Particularly enthusiastic doom-sayers include the rather excitable Colin Campbell, a former oil geologist and founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO), and Matthew Savinar, whose website, Life After the Oil Crash, greets us with the cheery thought that: `Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon.' The film draws to a close with footage of an Amish man driving his pony and trap, as if to say that this is the future of transport.
Against the pessimism of the peak oil theorists is the reality that we do not `worship' oil nor are we addicted to it. Oil is simply an extremely cheap and very effective solution to a number of technical problems. If oil production does decline - and it would be wrong to simply assume that as yet - we'll have to find new solutions instead. In the short term, no single alternative fuel source will take the place of oil. But unless oil production suddenly collapses, which is unlikely, replacements only need to substitute for part of what oil would otherwise supply in the short-term. Bio-fuels, clean coal, nuclear power, hydrogen, solar and wind power will all, to some extent, have a part to play - along with technologies that have not yet been developed.
Greater efficiency will surely also kick in. When oil is cheaper than bottled water or milk, there is little incentive to find more efficient modes of transport or alternative precursors for chemicals currently produced from oil. The oft-quoted saying `We didn't stop using horses because we ran out of hay' is very true. Long before supplies completely run out, oil and the technologies that demand it, like the internal combustion engine, will be replaced by something else. In all likelihood, those substitutes will be better than the technology we currently have.
A crude outlook
The notion of peak oil appeals to a mindset that cannot believe that the future holds anything but disaster. This outlook can be found in all manner of discussions from the `obesity epidemic' to the pensions crisis precipitated by the `demographic timebomb' to catastrophic climate change. This mood was beautifully summed up by the journalist and former Independent editor Rosie Boycott as she chaired a question-and-answer session with the co-producer of A Crude Awakening, Ray McCormack, in London last Friday. Responding to the suggestion from the audience that the refusal to see that oil has peaked is `macho', Boycott said:
`Completely hard-wired into every one of us is a belief that literally since we came out of the swamp we've been in this thing called Progress. And while it may have brought ups and downs, it's never let us down. You can chart that things have got more extraordinary and more amazing and diseases have been solved and everything has been solved. I'm in my fifties and I've grown up as a child believing that science solved everything. It's only in the last few years that I've realised that science can't solve some things and science makes things worse. for the first time in all these millions and millions of years that we've been here, we're actually going to go backwards.'
Boycott's outlook is widely shared, particularly amongst former radicals like herself (she was once at the forefront of feminist publishing, co-founding Spare Rib and Virago Books). Society, it is believed, can no longer move forward and, in fact, the very attempt to solve problems will actually make things worse.
This worldview cannot account for the continuing expansion of both wealth and the duration and quality of life. That does not mean that there are no problems in the world today - there are many massive problems to be tackled. New problems, some of them the product of human activity, will emerge. But the most serious possibility that society might really `go backwards' will come from the belief that Progress is a failure. Boycott's comments are a very good illustration of the societal suicide note that many people seem anxious to write.
Oil production has almost certainly not peaked. Even if it has, it's high time we moved on to smarter technologies. But if the ideas that underpin A Crude Awakening become truly popular, then civilisation itself may well have peaked, disintegrating into a heap of self-doubt.
Source
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For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.
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An email from David Whitehouse [david@davidwhitehouse.com]
Some media commentators have told us that the IPCC's "Synthesis" report has settled the science of global warming beyond doubt and that alternative approaches or indeed modifications to the CO2 greenhouse warming effect have lost the scientific argument. Certainly the working hypothesis of CO2 induced global warming is a good one that stands on good physical principles but let us not pretend our understanding extends too far or that the working hypothesis is a sufficient explanation for what is going on.
Clearly the world of the past 30 years is warmer than the previous decades and there is abundant evidence (in the northern hemisphere at least) that the world is responding to those elevated temperatures, though not yet the Polar Bears.
However, it was a pity the Synthesis report did not look in more detail at the recent warming trend the Earth has experienced - that has taken place since about 1980, as this and the rising CO2 levels are surely at the heart of the problem. Had this warm period not occurred we would have no talk of global warming and perhaps, as happened in the 1970's, we would fear a new Ice Age! This omission means that, contrary to what Ban Ki-Moon said, the Synthesis report has not answered so many questions relating to global warming or what will happen in the future. It seems that one can only understand what is going on (and make predictions) if one's vision is narrow and one talks in soundbites.
The fact that the recent warming period can be divided into two distinct periods is surely instructive and has a direct bearing on the IPCC's projections for the future and its mitigation strategies. The period 1980 -98 was one of rapid warming - a temperature anomaly of about 0.6 degrees C or 0.3 deg C per decade (CO2 rose from 340ppm to 370ppm). Since then the global temperature has been flat (whilst the CO2 has risen from 370ppm to 380ppm) meaning that the global temperature is about 0.3 deg less than it would have been had the rapid increase continued. (This leads me to suggest, slightly tongue-in-cheek, that there has been global cooling in the past decade as a decrease in the increase of temperature is a cooling!) The 1980 - 98 increase is generally similar to the increase seen between 1910 and 1940 which was 0.6 deg C in 30 years. It may be that the current flatlining of global temperature will be similar to that seen between 1940 and 1980 in that it will be followed by another increase (as the UK's Met Office believes will commence in 2009) but we don't know.
Incidentally, all the indications are that the global temperature of 2007 will be the coolest since 2000. This is interesting as there have been no significant volcanic events and no La Nina cooling.
How can it be that the atmosphere has responded so differently to a steady increase in CO2 levels and the constant temperature forcing that implies? As I argued in a previous post to CCNet (25th October 2007) the flat temperature of the past decade is difficult to explain. Adding reflective aerosols to the atmosphere (a byproduct of greenhouse gas emissions or volcanoes) is contrived and requires unlikely circumstances. Other explanations such as the ocean cooling effect of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation or the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation are also difficult to adjust so that they exactly compensate for the increasing upward temperature drag of rising CO2.
Also disappointing in the IPCC report was the lack of mention of the uncertainties involving solar effects and what they could mean for future predictions of global warming. There is a growing school of thought that suggests that the next solar cycle, cycle 24, could be weak and possibly the start of a prolonged period of low activity. There are certainly signs of a decline after a significant increase in solar activity throughout most of the last century. In the past when this has occurred the Earth has cooled though by what mechanism is unknown.
Despite what has been said the Sun is still an important factor to consider, more so if the temperature flatlining continues. It was thought (by climatologists) that solar driven climate change was too small to be detected but recent studies of decadal solar influences show they can be detected. Mostly their influence is small but there are huge differences that point to unknown amplification effects.
In the past few years we have been learning more and more about such things as differential solar heating, trade wind effects, solar induced upwelling of cooler water in the oceans and the fact that solar activity alters the interaction between the Earth's surface and the atmosphere in driving fundamental convection cells. In the past decade we have also discovered that the cloudy lower atmosphere absorbs more visible and IR radiation than previously thought. It has also been realised relatively recently that the IR from the sun varies more than visible. In addition, the unexpectedly large global decadal cycle of 0.1 deg C seen at an altitude of 2 km cannot easily be explained.
The point is that we cannot predict the future until we understand these things. Clearly the Earth's natural state is not to have so much CO2 in its atmosphere and it would be prudent to reduce it. But let's acknowledge the considerable scientific uncertainties and differentiate between the effects of increasing global temperatures on the one hand and increasing CO2 levels on the other.
I have heard it said, by scientists, journalists and politicians, that the time for debate is over and that further scientific debate only causes delay in action. As scientists we must never bend our desire to know what is going on to any political cause, however noble. The science is fascinating, the ramifications profound, but we are fools or perhaps politicians if we convince ourselves that we know more than we do and when we are satisfied to describe such a complicated system in a soundbite.
Greenie people-hate on display again
Halting population growth in developing countries should be part of a global strategy to reduce mankind's impact on the environment, according to an eminent expatriate Australian scientist. Immediate past president of the Royal Society, Professor Lord Robert May said that, given the threat of climate change, a declining global population was "a prerequisite" if humanity was to achieve a sustainable ecological footprint in the future. Addressing the Lowy Institute in Sydney last night, Lord May said a priority was educating and empowering women, "particularly in those cultures where this is not currently the case".
Lord May, a former chief scientific adviser to the British government who was made a companion of the Order of Australia in 1998, said this would be assisted by achieving universal primary school education and promoting gender equality. The United Nations estimates 700 million women, or two thirds of all those married or in stable unions, use some method of contraception. "In my view, religious beliefs or other ideological prejudices prompt some major international organisations to oppose contraception, forbidding distribution of condoms or even advice about fertility control," Lord May said.
He said it was encouraging that in the past year global fertility rates fell below replacement levels for the first time in recorded history, with the average female now having slightly less than one female child. Global population growth is predicted to increase to 9 billion by 2050, driven by strong growth in developing countries, while declining birth rates in developed countries create their own inter-generational problems.
Lord May warned that cutting population alone would not address environmental problems, as smaller populations tended to be associated with increasing standards of living and higher environmental impacts per capita. He warned of the growing threat of conflicts and mass movements of people as the world's population fought over limited water supplies and other resources. "All this rolls together with rapid and continuing advances in information technology, which simultaneously makes things better and worse," he said. "Better because we can more easily and effectively co-ordinate action, once motivated to do so; worse because in such a global village the massive inequities between groups are clearly exposed."
Lord May warned that the re-emergence of fundamentalism in the world was a reaction against the liberating force of the new information age.
Source
GREEN LOGIC: 'NATURE' ENDORSES HUMAN EXTINCTION
In the latest Nature, Chris Thomas says:
"This year the baiji river dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer), a victim of the pollution and boat traffic of China's Yangtze river, was added to the list of creatures on the verge of extinction. Is this part of the sixth mass extinction in 450 million years, or does the recent spate of losses caused by humans represent a blip in the history of life on Earth? Michael Novacek's Terra takes stock of the situation and provides an opportunity to learn from the past. ...
Of course, we shall solve some of these issues with technological fixes. Yet if we maintain 9 billion avaricious people on Earth for the next millennium, a sixth extinction event seems inevitable. The geological perspective of Terra is bizarrely reassuring. Humans will presumably be gone within a few million years, perhaps sooner. If the past that Novacek describes is a guide to the future, global ecosystem processes will be restored some tens of thousands to a million years after our demise, and new forms of life over the ensuing millions of years will exploit the denuded planet we leave behind. Thirty million years on, things will be back to normal, albeit a very different `normal' from before. It is good to be optimistic. The problem is living here in the meantime."
Thomas is "optimistic" that humans and any descendants with a remotely similar population or resource-intensive technology will be extinct in a million years. Yet if a plague, for example, were to produce this outcome within the next ten years, I'm pretty sure most everyone would see this as a catastrophe of the highest possible order. So how does this become a good thing if it happens in the next million years?
Source
BRAVE GREEN WORLD: WHO NEEDS ASTRONOMY? THOSE GUYS MIGHT DISCOVER SOMETHING AWKWARD
Much safer to spend the money on a metastasizing bureaucracy
British astronomers were last night shocked by a sudden funding cut that will prevent them having access to two of the world's most advanced telescopes. A Government funding council yesterday announced it would pull out of the Gemini Observatory - twin 26ft telescopes in Hawaii and Chile which together can be used to observe the entire sky. The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) said it was pulling out of the observatory, in which Britain has a 23 per cent stake, despite the Government having invested 35 million pounds in building it.
Prof Michael Rowan-Robinson, President of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), said: "This decision is a serious mistake and a shock to all of us. "If it goes ahead it will deny UK scientists access to large telescopes in the northern hemisphere and hinder their ability to study almost half the sky. I call on the STFC to rethink this proposal."
FULL STORY here
POOR INDIE: DAILY DOOM DOESN'T SELL
The Independent, the `compact' UK newspaper known as the Indie (the Independent on Sunday being the Sindie), which is infamous for its doom-laden front pages on `global warming' (and many other PC topics), is clearly in trouble. I have just been trawling through a few interesting reports and facts:
Writing in The Observer (November 11), Peter Preston comments that "the relaunched, more anorexic Independent on Sunday is 8.37 per cent off October 2006 (with only 132,000 UK readers prepared to stump up 1.80 pounds)" and that, at the newsstand, the "Independent, with not much of a net presence at all, is down 6.72 per cent in a year." The circulation of the Indie in August, 2007 was a mere 240,116 [according to the UK ABC (Audited Bureau of Circulations)], a 5.37% drop from November 2006, and way, way below The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The Times.
Moreover, unlike The Guardian (c. 18 million unique users), the poor Indie is unlikely to be saved by its website, which must be one of the dullest in the world. The word `anorexic' again crosses one's mind.
And now, today, the `Financial Section' of The Times reveals that "Denis O'Brien, the Irish telecoms billionaire, has called on Sir Anthony O'Reilly to sell The Independent newspaper and resign as the chief executive of the company behind the loss-making London-based title. `The Independent has to go, as do other vanity projects,' Mr O'Brien told The Times in an uncompromising interview."
Well, I never like the loss of media and debating outlets, but I have to say that the demise, if that were ever to happen, of the Indie would bring fewer tears to my eyes than most. As a purveyor of gloom and doom, it has been second to none. Even one environmentalist confided to me that, when on the tube or the bus, she felt she had to read it hidden between less lurid covers.
Still, it would be a pity. Over the years, the Indie has proved a rich seam for bloggers and commentators alike - even beats the old Guardian, and that is saying something these days. Clearly doom and gloom on a daily basis doesn't in the end sell. After all, why bother to read a newspaper when the triffids are lurking behind every page?
Source
A fit of peak
The doom-laden vision of a post-oil world put forward in a radical new documentary is as crude as the black stuff that gushes from the ground
With crude oil prices pushing up towards $100 per barrel, it's a good time to release a documentary that argues we're in imminent danger from dwindling oil supply. According to A Crude Awakening, demand for oil is accelerating while supply has peaked and will shortly go into rapid decline. The result will be social disruption on a scale unseen since the Great Depression. Sounds scary - but in reality these arguments seem as crude as the black stuff gushing from the ground.
The film, made by Swiss journalist Basil Gelpke and Irish producer Ray McCormack, is a diatribe against the evils of an oil-based economy. Opening with a narration befitting a horror movie, we are told that oil is the `devil's excrement' and the `blood of the earth'. Through interviews with a number of experts, activists and politicians, Gelpke and McCormack argue that developed economies, most notably the USA, are utterly dependent on oil. Farming, transportation, plastics - in fact, the production of pretty much everything - depends on a supply of oil. For example, every calorie of food energy we produce requires 10 calories of energy inputs - mostly oil. The vast majority of travel, too, is powered by oil pumped from the ground.
Supply and demand
The problem, according to the film, is that production may have peaked or is just about to do so. The world is currently using roughly 85million barrels of oil per day (1). (A barrel of oil is 42 US gallons or 159 litres.) Demand is booming due to rapid economic growth in China and India and steadily increasing demand in the developed world. The filmmakers argue that there have been no new big oilfield discoveries since the late 1960s when huge quantities of oil were discovered in the North Sea and Alaska.
As it happens, the film's opening in the UK coincided with an announcement by the Brazilian government of a new offshore field, Tupi Sul, that could ultimately provide eight billion barrels of oil. But this will not come fully on-stream for a few years and will only provide a small portion of the world's growing oil needs each year (2). In fact, the total oil from this field would only supply current levels of world consumption for about three months. Worse, according to the film, the declared remaining reserves of oil in many members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) may be greatly overstated. In the past, OPEC members have had an interest in exaggerating their remaining stocks since OPEC production quotas have been based on declared reserves.
The really big fields with long potential reserves are in the Middle East - hardly a stable region. This question of stability informs comments in the film by Stanford politics professor Terry Lynn Karl, who provides a fairly outrageous example of the war-for-oil thesis. Karl believes that the two Gulf Wars were driven by a desire to seize and control oil reserves - which is slightly bizarre, given that Iraq's oil could more easily and cheaply have been controlled by propping up Saddam rather than removing him. But this war-for-oil thesis apparently knows no bounds, with Karl glibly suggesting that everything from the civil war in Sudan to the two World Wars can be put down `in part' to a scramble for oil.
Solving the problem
The film is already showing its age, however. Much of the discussion in the film is about how there is more oil under the ground, but that it is not economically viable to dig it up. As one US oil worker notes, in incredulous tones, the oil price would have to be $50 a barrel for it to make sense. But since prices have now shot up to nearer $100 a barrel, a range of possibilities opens up, even if current high nominal prices are to some extent a product of the weak dollar.
Suddenly, getting that oil out of the ground is good business. Other opportunities arise: expensive exploration in relatively uncharted territories starts to make sense because the gamble could have such a huge pay-off; exploration methods themselves can improve; finding ways to recover a greater percentage of the oil in any particular field would be a boon; producing liquid fuels from the world's abundant stocks of coal - pointless when oil itself is cheap - is now practical and economic. For all the severe limitations of the free market, it is quite clear that a rising oil price provides strong incentives to explore both oil-based and non-oil avenues for future energy production.
But the filmmakers seem uninterested in the possibility that declining oil stocks are a problem that could be solved. `The demand is so huge there is nothing we can imagine to replace oil in those quantities', suggests David L Goodstein, professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology. Instead, A Crude Awakening provides a litany of disastrous consequences that must inevitably result from peak oil. Particularly enthusiastic doom-sayers include the rather excitable Colin Campbell, a former oil geologist and founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO), and Matthew Savinar, whose website, Life After the Oil Crash, greets us with the cheery thought that: `Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon.' The film draws to a close with footage of an Amish man driving his pony and trap, as if to say that this is the future of transport.
Against the pessimism of the peak oil theorists is the reality that we do not `worship' oil nor are we addicted to it. Oil is simply an extremely cheap and very effective solution to a number of technical problems. If oil production does decline - and it would be wrong to simply assume that as yet - we'll have to find new solutions instead. In the short term, no single alternative fuel source will take the place of oil. But unless oil production suddenly collapses, which is unlikely, replacements only need to substitute for part of what oil would otherwise supply in the short-term. Bio-fuels, clean coal, nuclear power, hydrogen, solar and wind power will all, to some extent, have a part to play - along with technologies that have not yet been developed.
Greater efficiency will surely also kick in. When oil is cheaper than bottled water or milk, there is little incentive to find more efficient modes of transport or alternative precursors for chemicals currently produced from oil. The oft-quoted saying `We didn't stop using horses because we ran out of hay' is very true. Long before supplies completely run out, oil and the technologies that demand it, like the internal combustion engine, will be replaced by something else. In all likelihood, those substitutes will be better than the technology we currently have.
A crude outlook
The notion of peak oil appeals to a mindset that cannot believe that the future holds anything but disaster. This outlook can be found in all manner of discussions from the `obesity epidemic' to the pensions crisis precipitated by the `demographic timebomb' to catastrophic climate change. This mood was beautifully summed up by the journalist and former Independent editor Rosie Boycott as she chaired a question-and-answer session with the co-producer of A Crude Awakening, Ray McCormack, in London last Friday. Responding to the suggestion from the audience that the refusal to see that oil has peaked is `macho', Boycott said:
`Completely hard-wired into every one of us is a belief that literally since we came out of the swamp we've been in this thing called Progress. And while it may have brought ups and downs, it's never let us down. You can chart that things have got more extraordinary and more amazing and diseases have been solved and everything has been solved. I'm in my fifties and I've grown up as a child believing that science solved everything. It's only in the last few years that I've realised that science can't solve some things and science makes things worse. for the first time in all these millions and millions of years that we've been here, we're actually going to go backwards.'
Boycott's outlook is widely shared, particularly amongst former radicals like herself (she was once at the forefront of feminist publishing, co-founding Spare Rib and Virago Books). Society, it is believed, can no longer move forward and, in fact, the very attempt to solve problems will actually make things worse.
This worldview cannot account for the continuing expansion of both wealth and the duration and quality of life. That does not mean that there are no problems in the world today - there are many massive problems to be tackled. New problems, some of them the product of human activity, will emerge. But the most serious possibility that society might really `go backwards' will come from the belief that Progress is a failure. Boycott's comments are a very good illustration of the societal suicide note that many people seem anxious to write.
Oil production has almost certainly not peaked. Even if it has, it's high time we moved on to smarter technologies. But if the ideas that underpin A Crude Awakening become truly popular, then civilisation itself may well have peaked, disintegrating into a heap of self-doubt.
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Jim Hansen and his twin
