Betraying their roots?

I have a new reason to detest and even oppose the creation of more offshore 'wind parks'. The impact they are having on the dolphin population. New research into why there has been a massive increase in dolphins stranding and dying in the North Sea area has found that it is because the victims are going deaf. It has taken a long time to find this out, and a lot more effort to find the cause. It turns out that the deafened dolphins are all from pods who lived and hunted in the vacinity of new wind parks. It has now been established that the cause of their going deaf is a direct result of the noise created when driving the 'piling' to create the foundations for the wind turbines.

A dolphin that cannot hear, cannot find food, cannot find its way, cannot detect obstructions, cannot ...

Now comes the really entertaining bit. Greenpeace has its origins in defending and protecting marine mammals - starting with the great whales, then expanding to cover Orca, dolphins and others. Now it seems, since Greenpeace are reaping large financial rewards from these same wind parks, that's no longer a priority. Pity about the dolphins, seals, fish and other marine life. No wonder more and more of the founders of Greenpeace are turning against them. I've come a long way down that road myself. It may surprise some to know that I once supported their campaigns to stop over fishing, the slaughter of dolphins and whales and so on. Now I will not give them ice in winter.

Building these wind turbines means driving massive piled foundations deep into the sea bed. This is done by 'hammering' using a massive falling weight which strikes the metal 'pile', each blow driving it deeper. The sound of the blow is amplified by the water, travelling as a kind of pressure wave. During the 'driving' operation these hammer blows are repeated at least once every minute, and all marine animals within a considerable radius of the source are subjected to this intense noise. Dolphins have a particularly sensitive ear - they need it - and the damage is rapid and permanent. Nor is it 'short duration' noise, the piling operations last for weeks. The underwater noise levels, if translated into the human environmental equivalent, would invoke an immediate ban by the Health and Safety Executive.

So, I expect Greenpeace will continue to put out its propaganda about 'Global Warming' and 'Climate Change', while ignoring the damage its favourite 'renewable' energy source is causing to all the marine and other wildlife it once thought so important. No, I will never again support them on any issue, and I will continue to object to the construction of useless windmills whose sole purpose seems to be to enrich their proponents.

Perceptions of Risk - Biased?

In recent weeks we have had a number of wonderfully colourful ‘scare’ stories in the mass media, starting with ‘Ebola victim diagnosed in Canada’, and, at regular intervals, headlines declaring that this or that ‘flu virus is about to become the next Black Death. And then there is ‘nuclear’ - that beloved bogeyman that lurks in every nuclear power station, an H-bomb just waiting to detonate and obliterate the town/city/country it's located in. Now we can add to that the dreaded “carbon” that is - according to the IPCC, Greenpeace and assorted politicians - the sole cause of ‘Global Warming/Climate Change”. But only, apparently, if it is generated by your car, the local power station, or the cattle, pigs and chickens you eat. Volcanos don’t count (even though, having forced everyone to ‘scrub’ Sulphur Dioxide out of our emissions, the same organisations are now claiming that volcanos injecting millions of tons of the stuff into the stratosphere during eruptions is ‘slowing Global Warming’) as their CO2 and SO2 is ‘natural’. 

Part of the trouble here is that our perceptions of risk are highly individual and generally biased by our levels of knowledge on a subject, by our training, our background and even our circumstances. Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy  of Need’ plays an important part in how we assess the risk against the need to achieve something. Two recent articles sent me by friends highlight both aspects. In the first, “Ebola, Organic Food, and Fukushima; three dope slaps about how we get risk wrong”  the author sets out the argument for how ‘fear’ of something we don’t understand, or feel we can’t control or protect ourselves from, slews our perception of the risk it presents. 

Take Ebola. It is a rather nasty virus, which causes perforation of the blood vessels. Victims bleed from every orifice and the virus is extremely contagious, but death isn’t a result of the bleeding, it comes as a result of damage to all the vital organs due to the redistribution of fluids and the inability of the blood to distribute nutrients efficiently. Right, so its a VERY nasty disease, but it is also confined to Central and West Africa, and it effects a few victims each year. In the last 40 years, several hundred people have been infected and died of it. On the other hand, millions have died in the same period, and thousands die each year of Tuberculosis, Hepatitis, HIV/AIDS and other less dramatic diseases. Which one should we be more concerned about? Especially in our crowded cities far from sources of Ebola (actually carried by certain primates many west and central African tribes consume as ‘Bush Meat’ and which some are now trying to bring to Britain) where, on a crowded bus, ’Tube’, train or U-Bahn journey you are far more likely to be exposed to TB being distributed by someone coughing or spitting?

Fukushima induced near global panic among the terminally anti-nuclear and we are still seeing regular Greenpeace incited headlines that ‘new’ radiation hotspots, contaminated water, or ‘airborne particles’ are about to ‘irradiate’ somewhere. Ironic that the UN’s own agencies (and I will admit to being a total sceptic with any UN agency) have been able to find not a single case of cancer or permanent damage among the workers exposed during their attempts to contain and control the problems there, nor among any of the people exposed in the surrounding areas. The much trumpeted ‘radio-active cloud’ that the US media hysterically declared was about to engulf the western US turned out to be almost undetectable against the normal background radiation for those areas. And, I’m sorry, but I don’t believe for a moment Greenpeace’s ‘scientists’ and ‘experts’ who claim to be able to detect ‘enhanced levels of radiation’ in the sea or anywhere else. 

So why does ‘nuclear’ induce such fear? I believe that it is partly due to the ‘ban the bomb’ campaigns of the 1960s and onward. The average ‘man-in-the-street’ has been taught that any and all nuclear reactors are dangerous bombs just waiting to detonate with the characteristic mushroom cloud, blinding flash of light and poisonous fallout. Many don’t have the faintest idea of how a nuclear pile is used in the generation of electricity, and all believe that all ionising radiation causes instant cancer, death, or ghastly mutations and monsters like the Simpsons five eyed fish. The fact is that the ‘detonations’ we saw at Fukushima were not ‘nuclear’ in that it was not the fissile fuel rods exploding, but Hydrogen gas which was generated by the breakdown of the coolant water into its component parts of Hydrogen and Oxygen. Yes, there certainly was radioactive material involved and there certainly was a lot of it thrown around, but, as at Chernobyl, it was not a ‘nuclear’ explosion and did not involve a ‘fission’ reaction to produce the bang. 

Yes, we can and should make use of a different fuel. Replacing the Uranium fuel rods with Thorium would produce less toxic waste for starters, but here again there is resistance from the public who have been fed the story that radioactive waste coolant water, spent fuel rods and so on amounts to millions of tons of highly radioactive waste leaking into our drinking water, percolating into our food, or leaking into our homes. The truth is that there is quite a lot of low level radioactive waste, most of it things like metal tools, overalls and scrap materials. It is ‘low level’ waste because it has very short half-life periods and the radiation it gives off is mainly Alpha and Beta radiation which is easily deflected as long as you don’t inhale or ingest it. This ‘low level’ waste is generally disposed of by packing it into steel containers, compressing it into a sort of ‘pill’ and then stacking these inside a larger container which is filled with boron or simply filled with concrete. It can then be stored underground for as long as necessary.

The high level waste is more problematic, since it takes around a hundred years to cool down enough to be put through the final process of disposal, but even that is manageable - in part because there isn’t as much of it as some believe. Again, the perception is well adrift and doesn’t align with reality, partly because the photos that circulate on the internet and surface every time anyone suggests building a new nuclear plant, are of the rather haphazard and careless storage uncovered when the Iron Curtain fell and we had access to how the Eastern Bloc had just dumped a lot of this material. All of those sites have now been cleaned up and the problems addressed, but in the minds of the anti-nuclear lobby, nothing has changed. Once again, the alignment of risk and the perception of it is coloured by the inculcated ‘beliefs’ founded on hype and misinformation. Sadly, here as with many other such areas, one also encounters the mindset that says ‘if the government/big business says it - it must be a lie’.

The third example given in the article I referred to above is an even more sensitive one. Food. Those who demand ‘bio-food’ only insist that this is because they want ‘healthier’ food devoid of insecticide or ‘artificial’ chemicals. There is usually a second agenda in that they refuse to eat anything ‘genetically modified’ and argue that this is ‘unsafe because we don’t know what the longterm effects are’. The sub-plot there is actually much simpler - they don’t like the fact that these foods have to be bought from the companies that created the seeds - because the modified plants can’t naturally reproduce. They hate the fact that someone might make a profit from the sale of the seeds or the creation of a food which is drought resistant, insect resistant or contains vitamins which may actually be healthier.

So they insist on eating food grown with ‘natural’ fertiliser, ignorant of the fact that they have a much better chance of contracting E-Coli from a tomato grown in pig or cow dung than one of Monsanto’s modified plants for growing in a greenhouse. ‘Golden Rice’ must be banned, because it is ‘genetically modified’ despite the fact it could cut malnutrition and eye disease in populations dependent on rice as their staple food. The fear of what the Media have labelled ‘Frankenfood’ and the hatred of anyone actually making any money from their research overrides everything else. Once again the perception of risk is coloured by factors having nothing to do with the actual risk perceived. Presumably the deficient diet, as perceived by western anti-commercial, anti-progress campaigners, is the lesser of the two evils and therefore must be tolerated for the ‘greater good’ of eradicating profit and progress. Unfortunately it is also likely to eradicate a large slice of humanity - but that is presumably also for the ‘greater good’. Whose, is a moot point.

A large part of the problem of risk perception is explained in a second article I have recently read, entitled “5 Cognitive Biases That Affect Our Work Performance.”  Put very simply, the way we see things or respond to things can be slewed by one or more natural biases we have built into our genes. The first is ‘Confirmation Bias’ which predisposes us to look only for the information that confirms an already held opinion or view. The second  is termed ‘The BandWagon Effect’ and is perhaps most simply explained as the desire to be ‘onside’ and to be part of the ‘team’. Dissenters are outsiders, often reviled, so we ‘go with the flow’ rather than try to form our own opinion. Third is ‘Negative Bias’.  If we are only exposed to negative stories about something we will, eventually, come to think of that as ‘truth’ and reject everything positive we hear. This is a problem we have with Mass Media - bad news sells, good news doesn’t so there is a built in bias in the reporting of events. If we add in a tendency to distrust certain sources - then the negativity is further reinforced. (OK, I’ll admit that if I am told the sun is shining by a politician, civil servant or Greenpeace and a few other advocacy organisations - I go and check for myself that it is).

Fourth comes what is termed ‘Functional Fixedness’, where we put on the blinders and stick to our preferred sources, or our preferred methods of doing things and refuse to acknowledge any others. This often leads to failure and a worse situation, but the experience frequently is rejected as ‘it worked the last time’ so it can’t be me that is wrong. The fifth is perhaps the most pernicious pitfall. Called ‘Projection Bias’ it leads us to think everyone else sees and thinks of things as we do. This is what leads us to think something must be so self-evident to everyone else present, we don’t need to explain it at all.

When we put all of this into the matrix as we wonder why some folk are scared witless at the mere mention of Ebola, or of a nuclear power plant, or even of GM crops, the picture that emerges is a complex one. Better communication is not the only answer, after all the internet is supposed to give everyone access to all the information on everything - isn’t it? 

Oh. Yes, back to point number one on the cognitive biases list - we only search and accept the information that confirms …

The wheel turns slowly ...

As someone who grew up in the 1950s and early 1960s I sometimes look back and wonder at the hubris that sprang from the 'triumph' over Nazism and Japanese expansionism, which coupled with the Doomsday angst of the Cold War, to produce the world we live in now. As the saying is; "We didn't see THAT coming!" Mine was probably the last to grow up with teachers and parents word being 'law', in a world where 'drugs' were used by losers and idiots and we recycled everything glass, and even tin cans. Compost was something you made yourself if you were a gardener, and you didn't go to the supermarket for your groceries, meat, spare tyres, car parts and everything else. Even dog and cat food was bought raw from a butcher, and cooked, then minced by hand and sealed into 'preserve jars' and stored in the refrigerator.

Fresh vegetables came in bulk from the local 'German' Market held every Saturday in the Municipal Market Halls, which often supplied a plump fresh chicken for our Sunday dinner. Chickens and eggs were all 'free range' in those days, and, yes, not cheap. I look back in amazement now that roast chicken was our 'luxury' once a week, and we ate stews, meat loaf, fish pie and many other dishes which 'stretched' whatever meat was available. My grandmother (who lived above us with my grandfather) baked biscuits, cakes and other treats, and made jam - her speciality was orange marmalade - and also pickled and preserved a lot of the vegetables. Peas came in the pods, in large string sacks, and my brother and I had the job of shelling them and storing them in large glass storage bottles. Beans also had to be cut and the 'string' removed so they could be stored and there was very little went to waste. It wasn't that we couldn't afford the odd bit, it was more a case of being very aware that by some standards, we were very well off, and waste was definitely something to be avoided.

Groceries were bought daily from the local greengrocer who also stocked a range of tinned and bottled goods, liquor came from an 'off-licence' and meat from a local butcher (who happened to be my uncle). Fish we bought fresh from the fishing boats, or at our local fishmonger, milk was delivered in a hand drawn cart and the empties collected, washed and refilled, as were almost all other bottles. We could make a bit of pocket money going round looking for 'lost' empty cold drink bottles and returning them to the shops who paid 1d (One whole Penny!) per bottle. But then, a Mars Bar about three times as big as the ones you get now, cost 6d and a slab of Cadbury's chocolate cost 2s 0d (Two shillings, or twenty-four pennies, for the post metrication generation!). Wages were, by todays standards, low - my father earned only Thirty-two Pounds, ten shillings (32/10s/0d) a month and my mother around Twenty Pounds. Out of that they paid the rent, fed and clothed my brother and I and ran a car. There were few 'luxuries' - but heck, we had plenty and appreciated what we had.

Looking back I can now see the gradual change that came over our world, starting in the late 1950s, probably around 1958/9. First came the supermarket. Instead of carry a basket up to Henry's Shop as it was known locally, we all ended up going to the supermarket on Saturday after the German Market. Then we had to carry the shopping out to the car in the large paper bags. It wasn't long and 'Henry's Store' was downsizing, then closed. Our trips to the Market became less frequent - usually only now for the occasional fresh chicken. After all, we could get everything we needed at the supermarket - and it was cheaper.

Somewhere along this road, cold drinks stopped coming in glass bottles. First they went into tins - actually aluminium, and later into plastic 'bottles' which you threw away. Convenient, yes, but now we had a rubbish problem. Being a 'free-range' kid, something else I noticed was the way in which suburbs and townships were expanding. By the time I left school, a lot of the places I'd hiked through as a Scout were now covered in houses, laid out as townships and simply no longer 'wild space'. That accelerated from around 1965 and by the time I married whole tracts of land I'd camped on, or visited or known as farmland was covered in houses. And that brought with it the first 'ecological crisis' - rubbish.

Between 1945 and 1965 we'd somehow managed to shift from a society that minimised waste, recycled as much as possible (even clothing was 'passed down', collars and cuffs 'turned', shoes resoled and so on) to one which threw everything away at the first sign of wear, or the first sign of an 'improved' version, and the 'consumer' society took off. Great for the profits of the companies feeding this, not so good for the animals now being 'factory' farmed as things to be bred, fed, slaughtered and packed for the supermarket without compassion. Some say we turned the African Slave Trade into an 'industrial' process - you should see how we treat animals in our 'consumer' desire for cheap excess.

The first indication that something was going very wrong was the streamers of discarded plastic shopping bags adorning every fence around our cities (I grew up in Africa in case readers don't know) and the waste dumps began to overflow. It got worse, waste simply couldn't be cleared fast enough in some areas, and most of it was ecologically non-degradable. I hadn't been in the fire service lonbg when the first recycling businesses started to spring up, someone having realised there was more to the old Yorkshire saying of "where there's muck, there's brass" than just a quaint expression. At first though, they could only handle paper and clothing, but gradually that extended into other things.

For some of us, it was funny to watch as the wheel turned slowly back to doing things we remembered as kids as being 'normal'. This is why, now resident some six thousand miles north of where I was until 1987, I sometimes find it annoying to be lectured by soime snotty nosed 'Green' clutching his/her iPad/iPhone/Android/(Insert Name of Latest Gizmo Here) and dressed in designer jeans, teeshirt and synthetic jacket and expensive trainers, about the need to 'save' the planet by cutting down my 'consumerist' lifestyle. I should laugh, after all, my wife is constantly nagging me about wearing shirts I bought almost twenty years ago, or my extreme reluctance to give up perfectly serviceable furniture to the Crunchy-Munchy truck when I'm damned sure someone, somewhere out there would love to have it and use it.

Yes, it is convenient to be able to go to the supermarket and buy cheap produce. It is convenient to be able to discard my drinks carton/can/bottle, but there is a hidden cost to all this 'consumerism' and it is one we all end up paying. Yesterday I raised the issue of energy, and here again, I must point out that back in the 1950s, our power was locally generated by a small coal burning power plant (as Josephus pointed out, the coal creates steam, which turns the turbines, which ...) and our home had only one power socket per room, one central light fitting and in the kitchen we had a grand total of two power sockets, the light and an electric stove! Luxury. Power was expensive, and we didn't 'waste' it. If you left a room, you turned the light off. Nor did you waste water. the supply was metered and my father was always quick to 'have a go' if the monthly bill was higher than usual.

I think we have reached a turning point as a society. The straightforward 'consume-'til-you-bust' model is broken. The model most 'Green' organisations promote is unworkable and unsustainable with our populations at present levels. Somewhere between the two we need to find a balance, consume less, recycle more efficiently (I've just watched a perfectly good lounge suite be destroyed by the Crunchy-Munchy truck - one which, if there was a decent furniture recycling system in place would have been cleaned, any defects restored, and passed to someone who needed it) and relearn the art of living, rather than existing in a constant rush.

Yes, the 1950s were probably the apogee of the western dream lifestyle for many, but the naked consumerism that began in the 1960s is not an ideal model either. As Fagan says in Oliver Twist, "I t'ink I better t'ink it out again". Perhaps not me, but perhaps some of those very clever people in the corridors of power - assuming they can stop gourging long enough to do so ...

Mr Cameron? Mr Milliband? Mr Clegg? Frau Merkel? Anyone?

The High Cost of Green

Germany was very quick to shut down their ageing nuclear generating plants in the wake of Fukushima, driven to a large extent by the hysteria whipped up by Greenpeace and the Green Party here, both of which have long anti-nuclear credentials. The problem was, of course, how to replace them. All the 'renewable' technology is expensive, ecologically extremely damaging in the places where the necessary minerals have to come from, and needs to be supported by more 'conventional' technology. Plus, of course, the distribution 'grid' was not designed for rapid switching from one source to another, or to distribute power across very long distances.

Anyone familiar with electricity distribution and generation knows that ideally one has the generating station and the user as close as practicable to one another as possible to maximise efficiency. The greater the separation, the greater the power drop across the 'net' and the less efficient the whole thing becomes. Less efficiency also means more cost. And that is what is currently exercising the German government, industry and commerce - and the ordinary people more than anything else.

In the last sixteen years 'energy' prices have gone up exponentially for the ordinary householder. The rise starting in 1998 is due mainly to the drive to switch from coal and oil to wind and solar, but is now further complicated by the rushed closure of the nuclear plants in 2011. For the ordinary householder electricity has risen from €0.17,11c per kW/hr to €0.28,73c per kW/hr (3.5% per year). The main reason for this is that the biggest users - heavy industry - are being subsidised in order to protect jobs. To hold their costs low (and protect the employment of the individuals who pay for household use) the cost of the 'Greening' of energy is being passed to the private individual.

The problem for the 'Greens', most of whom are middle to upper income earners or students and others on 'supported incomes' is that the larger population has noticed, and are starting to complain bitterly. Their complaint is, as the Chancellor, Frau Merkel acknowledges, justified. But now everyone is between a rock and a hard place. Efforts to reduce energy use have failed, and failed spectacularly. Resistance to building more windmills is stiffening, with increasingly angry exchanges between rural communities and city dwelling Greens and energy chiefs who want to cover every landscape with towering windmills and, of course, the power lines for distribution.

The government here is acutely aware of these concerns and is trying to find alternatives. They are also very aware of the fact that a large slice of the gas used in generating and heating of homes comes from Russia - a particularly tricky source at the moment - while we are actually sitting on vast quantities of a material that sends the Greens into a frenzy - brown coal. Ironically most Green campaigners have failed to realise that diesel and gas turbine generators are being installed to 'support' their beloved 'renewables' while they furiously oppose the building of new clean technology conventional power plants. And don't even mention anything nuclear ...

So the costs continue to rise while the politicians struggle to balance the need to ensure a stable and secure power supply, the Greens continue to dream of 'restoring' the climate to a non-existent idyllic past 'norm' and the rest of us pay. The greatest irony is that the poorest members of society are, in effect, paying proportionately more for this than those who so passionately enforce their vision of a 'better world' on the rest of us. As they say, there is the view from the Ivory Tower, and then there is reality.

Yokohama

The Yokohama IPCC conference has now published its annual conclusions, which, not unexpectedly, are the usual "it's worse than we thought" with the usual fanfare. Of course, the western media have paraded the usual 'Green experts' - notably all from Western Nations' - against background shots of steaming cooling towers at power stations, bleating about how we are all going to drown/choke/die of starvation. Once again I am struck by the fact that the UN 'experts' are all drawn from radical Green, 'Liberal' or decidedly Left-leaning 'developing' nations or ideological organisations (the chairman of the IPCC panel is from Nepal and has pronounced views on 'Social Justice' and 'wealth redistribution').

Reading the reports of their deliberations and seeing the photographs and televised sessions, one does have to laugh at the irony of their railing against 'Big Oil' consumption by the 'Industrialised Nations' - shorthand for 'The Western Democracies' - while sitting on the chairs which would not exist without the hydro-carbon industry, and carrying laptop computers, smart phones and a plethora of other gadgets that could not exists without oil, or the 'energy' they want everyone to shut down.

I have said it before, and I continue to say it. The climate is changing. What I don't believe is that there is a single driver - CO2 and related trace gases - pushing it. This focus on one aspect is blinding the world to several much larger, and, I believe, far more pertinent, problems. Killing the western industrial base and 'redistributing' its wealth won't reverse the climate change, nor will it fix the problem. If anything it will make it far worse. I will cite an example of what I mean.

In 1982 the world watched in horror as a major famine developed in Ethiopia, and we were bombarded by images of starving and dying children. Various celebrities and pop-stars rushed to respond with 'Band AID' and raised millions, sending in emergency food Aid, medical assistance and so on. What I see nowhere in the media today is the fact that Ethiopia, Somalia and a couple of their neighbours have trebled their populations, famine is again endemic, but, instead of reorganising and addressing the root problem the local governments and the UN are pouring even more 'Aid' in and sustaining the problem.

Yes, humans do impact the climate, but in ways I don't see anyone discussing. In the UK and Europe, flood plains are being built over. Even where we have not built in a flood plain, we pave vast areas, reducing the land's ability to absorb the water and this increase the 'run off'. Greenpeace and other 'ecological' organisations have their placemen in the Environment Agency who block any attempt to get sea defences rebuilt and maintained, or to have drainage channels dredged and rivers cleared - so flooding does increase. Britain's population has trebled since the 1940s, and housing, with all the additional paving and run-off from drainage has as well.

In the Indus valley, millions of people are tilling, building and paving the flood plain, and historians would know that the events of a couple of years ago were a repeat of an event on the late 1880s. On that occasion the flooding displaced huge numbers of people and killed thousands, but we didn't have the mass media and television to beam it into everyones home. Ergo, in the modern mind it didn't happen. Even the Band AID crisis in Ethiopia is now on the edge of memory. Most of those now marching for 'action on the climate' or rushing about symbolically turning off lights to save the planet weren't born when it happened.

Another of the ironies of the 'Green' campaigning is their refusal to accept the need to adapt our food production. Far too many seem to be wedded to the idea that the world can be returned to some sort of subsistence economy with cottage industries, barter and mutual ownership of everything. They seem to be dreaming of a world that has never existed, and probably can never exist. The main objection to GM foods is always presented as 'ecological and health risks' but the truth is these have been addressed comprehensively. The real reason they object is actually that the companies that have done the research and invested vast amounts of money developing grains that need less water, produce higher yields, have less gluten, more Vitamin A or D and are less susceptible to destruction by insects, will 'make a profit' from their work. It comes across very strongly that their objection would be instantly withdrawn if Monsanto, DuPont and others handed everything over to the UN or some other 'non-profit' organisation to be distributed 'free'.

I firmly believe that we must adapt if we are to ride out the effects of Climate Change. My travels to some of the supposed 'beauty' spots and 'tropical paradises' - probably because I haven't gone as a 'tourist' have shown me the image of 'Paradise Lost' with fouled rivers running with raw sewage, forests decimated, not for western profit, but for firewood for exploding populations, beaches littered with plastic and other waste, and animals being poisoned, shot and driven to extinction as ever increasing numbers of people try to scratch a living from ever decreasing areas of usable land.

Sadly, I think I may saying the unsayable, but I think we are looking the wrong way on climate change.

Internet Trolls are Psychopaths?

A few days ago, some interesting research hit the news. Everyone who has used a 'discussion forum' online, or perhaps posts to a blog, even uses FaceBook to post 'updates' abot their activities, or reads the comments beneath articles in online newspapers, will have encountered at least one 'troll'. These people never debate or discuss anything. They resort to offensive smears, name calling and often extremely personal attacks on any and every topic, from religion, through climate change and politics. Even science threads are not completely free of them.

The Canadian research, which is comprehensive in its sample and extensive in the testing, has come up with an interesting conclusion. 'Trolls' are generally people who display Machiavellian manipulative traits; they enjoy causing offence and hurt; they enjoy causing fear (one acquaintance had an exchange with a Troll, who then stalked her across the internet, making personal threats. The Police were called and traced him. He turned out to be a 13 year old with the classic psychopath profile) through stalking and threats, and who have sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies. This should concern us, because it is often these behaviours that make the running on a wide range of subjects and topics in todays world.

Just look at how the political debate between left and right ideologies seems to have become bogged down and dominated by epithets, offensive labels and name-calling. Look at the typical behaviours of those leading it. It seems to be particularly prevalent among many 'atheists' who troll religious debates and sites. The same has happened in the 'climate change' debate - it is the Trolls who make all the running and currently have the attention of policy makers and politicians. Why is 'cyber bullying' such a problem? Once again, it is those inclined to 'trolling' who are the lead offenders, and other studies over the years have suggested a strong link between 'bullying' and psychopathic and sadistic behaviours.

Among the classic indicators found by the researchers was 'desire to hurt' among many Trolls. These people actively take 'roles' in online games which give them the best opportunity to 'cause hurt' to other game characters, or 'kill' opponents. Another tendency is to regard animals and people as 'things', objects to be used, manipulated and abused. Again, classic psychopath behaviour. Once someone becomes an 'object' he or she is no longer considered to have any more value than would be given to, say, a stone or a window to be broken with it.

The online Independent carries a good report on the research here.  The full report is available (behind a paywall) at Science Central entitled "Trolls just want to have fun". Unfortunately, it does seem that their idea of fun is to cause as much distress and pain as possible to anyone who happens to come into contact through the internet or any other medium.

We should be worried by this, since it does tell us something important about the society we have blundered into creating. Perhaps it is also a call to run a few checks on the trolls - none of the traits they display can be termed 'healthy' for anyone, least of all themselves. The research raises some very interesting questions across a very wide spectrum of behaviours closely related to 'trolling', with big implications for a number of organisations who encourage it as a part of 'civil action' for their causes.

When Politicians start to be 'certain' it's time to check which planet they're on ...

The US Secretary of State, Mr Kerry, seems to never read a briefing paper, or to have much contact with reality. Dr Judith Curry, a climate scientist of considerable note, though NOT one of the 'team', says it far better than I can. She is, after all, a scientist.

She has a long article on Mr Kerry's pronouncements on climate change on her blog.  I am more and more convinced that all of this hysteria on the subject of climate change is a cover for an agenda which wishes to de-industrialise and de-commercialise the western nations and economies, turning them into someone's ideal of a pre-industrial cottage industry style aggrarian world. I note that it is always the 'west' that must cut consumption, cut fuel use, cut emissions and cut its economic throat to 'save the planet' or 'give developing nations a fair deal' with the same never being asked of any of the real polluters and over populators.

The truth is that our leaders are apparently hell bent on destroying our economies in pursuit of the policies set out in the UN's Agenda 21. The question I ask is this; who, precisely, will benefit from it? Certainly not our societies, or our children.

Climate and Weather

Once again I see the terrible weather the UK and Europe have been enduring - the UK in particular taking the brunt of it - is fuelling the 'Global Warming/Climate Change' hysteria. Yet another 'paper' has been rushed into print claiming that 93% of the 'missing heat' (the gap between reality and climate model predictions) is lurking in the oceans. The Polar Vortex responsible for this battering we are currently enduring is, apparently, caused by the ice loss and warming of the Arctic Ocean. The paper also claims that Antarctica is losing its ice shelves, and the reason for the current increase in ice there is - you got it - global warming 'trapping' a vortex over the continent.

I get fed up with selective quotes, buzz phrases (the users of which seldom actually know what they mean) and headlines like "unprecedented" or "worst XXX in history". I get fed up with being told that something has never happened before, when right in front of us is ample evidence that it has, and may even have been worse. Why did the Victorians build the Embankments along the Thames in London? Why did the coastal authorities in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries spend enormous amounts of money (often the landowner's own) and effort building land drains, dykes and sea defences? Because none of these events or storms is "unprecedented" except in the minds of idle ignoramuses who never check their facts and are totally ignorant of any history. In medieval times an entire town vanished overnight in a storm that hit the Frisian coast of Germany. Archaeologists now know that wasn't 'unprecedented' then either. Holland has suffered massive flooding throughout its history, and the Thames suffered 'catastrophic' floods at regular intervals until quite recently. In fact, in February 1928 there was massive flooding in much the same areas now affected, people drowned in the western suburbs of London in the floods. So how is the current flood 'unprecedented'?

There can be no doubt that the climate is changing, but to ascribe it, as so many reports do, purely to the Carbon Dioxide emissions of mankind is pure garbage. "Carbon" has become a 'catch-all' word for everything Greenpeace and its devotees cal a 'greenhouse gas' - in which group they now include water vapour. But how many of the idiots who earnestly repeat this trash actually understand anything at all about the 'gases' they deem to be so harmful? Not many if any of the conversations and news reports I am constantly bombarded with are anything to go by. Once again we see the likes of the Labour Leader, and the Minister for the Environment trotting out the buzz phrase that 'we must de-carbonise society' in order to 'prevent catastrophic climate change'. As I have repeatedly said, the day I see proof they can control the rise and fall of the tides, is the day I will subscribe to this trash. Until then, stop running around like Chicken-licken screaming the sky is falling, and let's get real. The answer to climate change - a natural phenomenon that has been happening since the planet first formed - is to adapt.

Stop building in flood plains would be a good start. The Somerset Levels were a sea marsh until they were drained in the 18th and 19th Centuries, so were the Fens. The other little wriggle is that we now have probably 30 times the number of people living in Britain than at the beginning of the Industrial Age. Urban sprawl has increased run-off, created 'heat islands' and 'micro-climates' which all mess up the weather patterns - so let's take a look at the effect those have as well.

Let's do something positive about finding a reliable and efficient source of electrical energy. I'd love to see the figures for the output of all those damned useless windmills during the storms. I'm prepared to take a bet with the High Street Bookmakers that it was not the vaunted 17% capacity they supposedly give. I'd be surprised if it was as much as 1 or 2% because with the wind speeds reported, most of them will have had to be shut down to prevent damage. So the alternative supplies will have been brought online - massive diesel generating plants quietly installed by the wind generating companies to keep the current flowing when the wind turbines aren't producing. And Drax, the massive coal burning plant currently being converted to burn wood chips imported from Western Canada by rail and ship loads. Yes, I expect that does a huge amount to "de-carbonise" our energy use, Mr Milliband.

Yes, let's replace hydrocarbon fuelled vehicles with electric ones - but let's find a more efficient way of using those than with massive and extremely toxic batteries. Let's find better ways to build and insulate our homes. Let's make those less vulnerable and more efficient even if that means replacing and redesigning all the building stock we currently hang onto as if it were the epitome of architectural and construction achievement. Frankly, most of it was substandard when built, and it hasn't improved with age. I'm not talking about real heritage buildings, but, seriously, what is the attraction of a Victorian Terrace built for "t' workers up t' mill"? The rooms are often damp, cramped and even if the house has been renovated, built right onto the street, has no garden and the street outside is choked with the cars not invented when the houses were built.

Climate Change, like the tides, is unstoppable. Like the tides, or continental drift, we can't stop it. So let's, for pities sake, stop wasting time and money trying to 'stop' it. It's time to get seriously real. The 'Climate Scientists' can't actually say which way it's going anyway, since nature has, so far, refused to conform to their fantasy models, and while Britain is bombarded by rain and storms, the North American continent is being buried in snow and ice. All down to 'Global Warming' you see. Most of these models are using data that has been 'smoothed' or 'averaged' and 'adjusted' to fit the model, which means the data fed into them is pretty close to being worthless - except in terms of how much money can be extracted from the tax payer to keep funding the circus.

So here's a radical idea. Stop funding the research into this. Let the UN pay for it if they can find the money and divert it from the wastage and corruption of that fraudulent organisation. Stop funding the multi-million dollar operations of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, etc., all of which are now become purely political (socialist/communist) organisations. Stop subsidising the inefficient wind farms (a wind turbine is, at best, only 27% efficient, whereas a coal fire power station is at least 43% efficient and most likely more). The money saved could be invested in rebuilding our building stock, and in new generating plants with the latest and most efficient technology. Wind and solar won't do it, and neither are as 'clean and green' as their proponents like to argue.

I think I really must stop being practical. I wonder of the Church of Climate Change dances and uses tambourines in their worship? Might be good for a laugh ...

Jewish Presence in Israel

Every so often one stumbles across something unexpected and interesting on the blogosphere. One such is a blog I found yesterday which had a fascinating article about a necropolis in the Jezreel valley which was the burial place of the wealthy and famous families of Jews following the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. Bet She'arim was developed as a burial place following the Roman ban on the continuance of Jewish worship and burial in Jerusalem. It continued in use under the Byzantine regime which continued the ban on Jews in Jerusalem and only gradually fell into disuse after the Muslim conquest of the area.

In the last couple of centuries, the site was seriously damaged by grave robbers, but the Israeli government has placed it under strict control. Today archaeologists are able to examine each of the several huge man-made caves and their associated tunnels and burial chambers properly. One does have to wonder why it is not listed under the UNs Heritage protection programmes - but then none of the important Jewish shrines, tombs and archaeological sites are. There is a great fuss over Jews attempting to visit those still under Muslim control. There is also rampant vandalism of those and some major Christian sites by Muslim vandals, but not a word of criticism from the UN about that. There is considerable evidence to suggest that there has been a very concerted effort in East Jerusalem, during the time it was under Muslim control, to erase all trace of Jewish history, and that is ongoing as the Waqf that controls (by international and Israeli agreement) the Al Aqsa Mosque and the platform surmounting the Temple Mount has 'enlarged' a number of underground structures and, contrary to the same international agreements, carried out a systematic programme of destroying anything and everything that might be Jewish or Christian in origin in the areas they control.

Bet Sha'arim is important, since it demonstrates the continuous presence of Jewish leaders, thinkers and merchants - plus, of course, the ordinary folk who worked for and supported them - in Israel from at least the time of the Roman occupation. Bet Sha'arim, the town, was the seat of the 'exiled' Sanhedrin, and the seat of the School of scholars that shaped and formed the post Temple form of Judaism. Why, therefore, do we hear nothing whatsoever about it in our media? Or, for that matter, in our histories of the area?

Probably because it would show that the arguments that Israel is an 'illegitimate' Nation are false. That would, presumably, not suit the narrative of the history of the region our current crop of so-called leaders wish to present.

Energy Demand and Freezing Weather ...

The 'Big Freeze' in the US could have been made a great deal worse by massive power outages. The surprise is what 'saved' the system. It certainly wasn't all those windmills and solar cells, nor was it the coal and gas generating stations, and even the diesel emergency generating stations had problems. The probably unpalatable fact for the 'Green' lobbyists is that it was the nuclear stations that kept going while natural gas lines suffered massive drops in pressure (the gas 'liquified' in the low temperatures and Charles Law took over and did the rest), the diesel generators suffered fuel problems (diesel fuel tends to 'jellify' at very low temperatures) and the coal trains couldn't get enough to the power stations in the snow - and the snow hindered its movement from the storage bunkers to the furnaces where there was enough.

The much maligned and hated nuclear power stations alone had no problem. Need more power in the grid? Run up some more of the turbines and bring them on line. The only thing that could have bothered them was the collapse of the overhead power grid. From Smart Planet, I got the following data in an article entitled The Score After the Deep Freeze: Nuclear Power 1: Polar Vortex 0. When Solar and Wind were shutting down because the extreme weather rendered them unusable, nuclear took the strain. Output figures for New England for the period show:

• Nuclear 29%
• Gas 27%
• Oil 15%
• Coal 14%

It is reported that coal stacks froze solid, and both oil and gas had problems, and diesel generators don't function well in extreme low temperatures (ask the U-boat commanders ordered to operate above the Arctic Circle in the 1940s ...). The remaining 15% of the energy used came from a mix of other sources, though wind provided the bulk of it - when the wind conditions allowed it. Now, remember this is for ONE part of the US, and the freezing weather actually affected the whole of the North and West and extended almost as far South as Florida. Admittedly the New England area is possibly one of the more densely populated areas and therefore has a very high demand for power, but it highlights one of the biggest problems we face in the pursuit of 'clean' energy.

It is true that there are a number of problems associated with nuclear power, but the fear that has been whipped up against it is largely based on general ignorance. The ignorance of the majority of people is ruthlessly exploited by the anti-nuclear lobby who are probably almost as ignorant as those they claim to 'inform' on it. One of the biggest problems is the lack of understanding regarding radioactivity, radiation and the dangers. As a good friend and former colleague who specialised in radiation once remarked, it's a radioactive universe. Yes, the current Uranium based reactor systems do produce some nasty by-products with long 'half-lives' of decay, but the question most folk don't understand is the difference between exposure to Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation sources. The first two are fairly easy to shield, the third is not and is the really nasty one. Ironically, almost every anti-nuclear campaigner I've ever encountered doesn't know this and doesn't realise that the gold rings, ear rings and pendants they wear also emits radiation. So do the rocks used to build houses in places like Scotland or Cornwall.

Had an x-ray recently? You've probably had about half the allowable radiation dose permitted in a nuclear facility. I discovered some years ago talking to a man (then in his late 80s) who had been part of the Manhattan Project team, that their 'safe exposure limits' had been set by halving the exposure limits allowed for x-rays ... No one seems to have ever questioned them since.

Radiation in one form or another is present everywhere, most sources things we take for granted and don't even consider to be 'radioactive'. Until fairly recently if you'd held a Geiger counter near the face of a 'luminous' watch it would have gone crazy. In fact it isn't that long ago a watchmakers premises in London were found to be sufficiently radioactive as to need a massive (and expensive) decontamination process.

The real problem with Nuclear generation is the waste, and here again, there is as much misinformation as there is waste. The truth is that very little of the waste is actually 'high level' waste such as Plutonium, Polonium, Caesium and so on. Most of it is irradiated clothing, tools and other materials which do not have a long 'half-life'. It is this stuff that Greenpeace and CND activists love to find 'improperly stored', and whip up hysteria with often staged and retouched photographs. Of course the stuff is dangerous, but to claim it will 'poison' the ground water, or irradiate anyone walking past is is nonsense. The high level waste is a different matter, but again, there is actually very little of it. The fuel rods themselves are generally recovered and can be reprocessed so that around 80% of the original material is recovered. The nasty stuff can be removed and is first cooled, compressed into cakes, then sealed into solid glass slugs before being encased in concrete and a steel jacket. This is the stuff the anti-nuclear lobby would have the gullible believe is being mishandled and improperly stored - and ignorance is their tool.

The fact is that nuclear is the best alternative to wind, solar, coal and oil electricity generating plants. For one thing there is no CO2 output. Nor do we have to stay with the current Uranium fuelled reactors. The truth is that Uranium was chosen for the simple reason that it does 'breed' Plutonium and that was required to make the atomic bombs. The alternative is to use Thorium which has almost no seriously bad decay products. No Plutonium, no Polonium and no Caesium. In other words, you don't have the incredibly long 'half-lives' of the radioactive wastes we are currently dealing with. There is still waste, and there is still a 'risk' but then the waste from a coal burning power station is seriously nasty - and radioactive.

To those who would rather see a further spread of windmills I would point to the fact that during the recent storms in the UK the National Grid was receiving very little from all the hundreds of turbines around Britain. Most of them were shut down because the winds were too strong - so the power was being produced by all the 'dirty' technologies they are campaigning to have shut down permanently. If you would rather see hydro-electricity increased, there are problems there as well. Building a dam large enough to generate the sort of capacity required causes massive ecological disruption to wild-life and the river systems - take a look at the Aral Sea since the Soviets dammed all the rivers that once fed it. Take a look at the Snowy River in Australia below the dam built on that, or the Murray-Darling Basin once the waters feeding that were diverted to provide water to other uses.Take a look at what is happening now on the Yellow River in China and then take a look at how the Severn eco-system will be affected by a barrage spanning the estuary. Why not dam the Thames at Dartford? Sure, the river upstream will be stable (it currently has an 18 - 21 foot tide) and the outflow/inflow can be used to generate power, navigation will be affected of course, but think of the benefit ... 

Nuclear power generation doesn't impact rivers, landscapes or ecological systems in anything like the same way. Incidents such as Windscale, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima are rare - far rarer than incidents involving other power generating plants, and each one of those involved circumstances that were unique. There are no nuclear plants in Europe or the UK that incorporate the features of Fukushima, much less are built in earthquake and tsunami zones. Nor is it so easy to deliberately crash an aircraft into the reactor building. In fact I would bet that most people couldn't actually identify the reactor building at most such sites. Changing the type of fuel to Thorium would, in fact, change the ball game as well. OK, it isn't as easy as simply pulling one type of fuel rod and replacing it with another, but this is where the current "No Nuclear" attitude is actually holding us back. 

So far all the efforts to cut power use, to reduce reliance on 'fossil fuel' (and there is a huge debate on whether 'oil' is in fact a 'fossil' product) have failed. And they will continue to fail. Our society needs electricity - lots of it - to survive. Those who think we can revert to subsistence farming, are living in Lalaland, and those who think we can maintain our current standard of living and levels of civilisation while reducing our use of electricity and transport are fooling themselves. "Renewable" energy will never replace normal generating plants since they are not reliable, and the fact that ever single one of us is actually subsidising the owners of these things is a disgrace. Data from the National Grid shows that though wind has the capacity to supply 17% of demand, it rarely produces more than 5% of what is required. 

Nuclear is clearly far more reliable, and if the hysterical, misinformed, campaigning mob is faced with reality - as in the removal of all their electric gadgetry whenever their wind turbines drop out of the gird - we might see some real progress. Progress which doesn't mean defacing the countryside and destroying the ecology with their windmills, dams and acres of solar panels. It is time for a major rethink, and for some serious education of the ignorant.  

Weather Lore

Listening to a learned climate scientist making predictions based on the latest models and data yesterday I did get a few laughs. The present warmer than usual winter in Western Europe is being seized upon by the Climate Change/Green lobby to ramp up their "see, we told you so" scaremongering. No mention is made, of course, of the unusually cold weather blanketing the US and Eastern Canada, or of the unseasonably extensive pack ice in Antarctica, or the massive recovery of the Arctic ice. Oh no, the entire focus is on the "Climate Change" in one small part of the overall continent. It was funny, largely because all these serious speakers have university degrees and live in cities, making, of course, the occasional foray into the countryside to choose some more sites for windmills and solar panel farms, and perhaps to wring their hands over the latest lack of snow.

Living in a small village, surrounded by farmers and forest, one cannot help but be aware of the old folk lore regarding a lot of nature and natural phenomenon. It's a pity so many highly educated Greens and Climate Scientists don't take a closer look at what the people on the land, in the forest and in the fields can tell them about cycles. A couple of weeks ago one of our local farmers told me that if the Epiphany dawned warm and clear with no snow - the winter was over and the Spring would arrive early. There are a number of similar measures and sayings in different places, and they are, generally, based on many centuries of observation, and are generally pretty much on the money.

Epiphany was chilly, but it was clear, and there was no snow on the ground. Now I am seeing birds furiously building nests, rabbits, squirrels and other wildlife all getting themselves geared up for the next stage in the cycle of their lives and the old farmer is complaint that the crops he had planned will not thrive yet - because the ground is still to wet.

It strikes me that for this sort of 'lore' to arise, there must have been centuries of observation of similar events and cycles. OK, so the folk who developed this didn't have temperature records, they didn't have satellite images and data, and the probably wouldn't know the North Atlantic Oscillation from a fun fair. That doesn't mean it can simply be disregarded - especially when it is, a lot of the time, more accurate than all the data crunching that goes into 'models'. I suspect that most of these models are simply a fancier way of the old Shaman throwing the bones and declaring that, because one landed in a pool of water, another on a stone and yet another on a patch of bare ground, that this meant we were going to get a flood, followed by a drying up of the rivers and a drought.

The rural weather lore is not just sucked out of the air, it has developed and been handed down through generations. It would not be repeated if the cycles weren't being observed by those repeating them. Some of the residents in this village are well into their 80s and one is over 90. Talking to them about the cycles of the land and the weather is fascinating and, I must say, a heck of a lot more informative than listening to someone repeating the story that Germany will not see any snow - even on its highest mountains, in another 30 years. Or that even Switzerland will not see snow in a hundred. I mentioned this to one old fellow here and he laughed. "Ja," he said, "They said that when I was little. Then we got the winter of 1947."

It seems to be the same thing all over the world. Once one becomes an "expert", the simple act of doing a reality check occasionally seems to get forgotten. Now, thanks to the fact that a warm winter (my neighbour reminds me in broad Hessisch that they had a similar one some years ago) I shall dig out my waders and take my friend Harry the Sheltie for a walk in the mud.

It just gets funnier ...

I have to confess that I find the predicament of the 'climate scientist' and his team and supporters (See the Antarctic Ice Shelf Before Its Gone Forever tourists) amusing. Having had to be airlifted from a Russian ice-breaker by a helicopter launched from a Chinese ice-breaker, and flown to an Australian ice-breaker (remember the initial reports said they were just passengers on a 'cruise ship'), they are now facing a return to the pack ice because the Chinese ship is now trapped and the 'rescue ship' has turned back to attempt to free the Snow Dragon.

It is funny to see the BBC and Guardian both playing down the fact they'd sent journalists and a team to record the 'vanishing ice'. They were to play up the Global Warming scam, and 'show' how the AGW scares are 'true'. The whole thing now frustrated by the fact that, in defiance of the computer 'models' the Antarctic ice sheet is growing and is now at its greatest extent for more than a century. But the BBC and the Guardian are not the only ones now desperately playing down the real purpose of this 'expedition'. Just about the entire AGW community is trying to ignore it. After all, this is the Antarctic summer, the ice is supposed to be thin, retreating and vanishing - isn't it? A century ago, an Australian explorer was able to sail right to the coast, something impossible since, and this 'expedition' was supposed to repeat the exercise. The leader's 'models' had predicted no ice. Pity Mother Nature didn't agree.

What is even more noticeable is the total silence from Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and all the other AGW scammers, regarding their contribution to the breaking up of these ice sheets by their own activities. Ice breakers are designed to smash their way through the ice. It follows - at least to my way of thinking - that if you keep ploughing channels through the pack ice, you are contributing somewhat more than your fair share of ecological destruction and damage. Or perhaps that doesn't count if you're doing it to 'prove' that everyone else is destroying the planet?

Oh, the irony. The troops of 'Save the Planet' being the very people doing the most damage to the fragile ecological systems they claim to be preserving and protecting. The hypocrisy would be funny if it wasn't so blatantly fraudulent. The people behind this now have so much money invested in keeping their 'true believers' on board and on message they can't afford to admit any error. Like the 'leader' of this latest fiasco, their investment in 'alternative' solutions has to be supported - or any hope of profit will vanish. As it is most of these 'alternatives' only show a return as long as taxpayers can be compelled to continue to support them with subsidies.

And who is paying for this massive rescue operation in Antarctica? That's the biggest joke of all - you are. The taxpayers, in this instance in Australia, are paying for it, but everywhere the 'Greens' have railroaded their religion into the corridors of power and the populist media, we are all paying for it and every other stunt these clowns pull.

That is not so funny.

Climate Changing in the wrong direction?

OK, I'll confess. I've been finding the plight of the Climate Alarmist 'scientist' and his team - plus their tourist supporters - trapped in the ice in Antarctica by 'unprecedented pack ice' when they expected to be able to sail blithely up to the coast itself, hilarious. Especially since it has been widely reported that the satellite measurements, on the ground observations and even overflights have all reported that there is more ice around Antarctica at present than there has been for quite some time. Now I see The Spectator has picked it up. Their article, The Climate Change Trip Stuck in the Ice, makes some serious points about this.

Even funnier is the fact that both the BBC and the Guardian had their climate change reporters on board - no doubt their pre-written reports to the effect that the ice was 'vanishing faster than expected' already filed. Now they'll have to either write the truth, or find some other scam to cover. The fact is that this is not the first such trip undertaken by the True Believers of Climate Change that has been frustrated by nature not following the script. Anyone remember the attempt to row to the North Pole last year? Oh, sorry, failed, because there was too much ice. Or the attempt to walk there the year before? Oh yes, that also failed because ocean currents and wind kept moving the ice around. Then there was the attempt to row a boat through the North West Passage. Oops, not possible. Ice closed the 'passage' for the whole period.

I suspect the writer of The Spectator article has it right when saying that even the 'new' name of Climate Change is so nebulous as to be meaningless. The 'climate' of this planet (and probably every other planet as well) has been 'changing' since it first formed. The idea that humans can do much more than have a small local impact is simply ludicrous, and the idea that we can actually change its direction in any major or meaningful way is so far-fetched it belongs in the sort of science fiction current in the 1940s and 1950s. It would be funny, if it wasn't doing immense damage to the national economies of those nations stupid enough to fall for it.

The current crop of 'interviews' with enthusiastic passengers being rescued by a large Chinese helicopter from the trapped ice breaker are interesting only because they fail completely to mention that the purpose of the trip was to 'prove' the ice pack was vanishing. Guess they forgot to tell Mother Nature that.

Wandering Weather

Snow in Egypt, blizzards in Jerusalem and Beirut, fog in the Taunus - and its cold. Reading the reports on the sea ice extent in the Arctic are interesting, as the freeze up there has been faster than expected, and while western Europe 'enjoys' a comparatively balmy run up to Christmas, further east the big freeze has hit. What fascinates me is the fact that snow is not unknown in Lebanon, Syria, Israel or Jordan. It isn't exactly unknown in Egypt either, but the last time it was this heavy in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel is around 60 years ago, and the last time Egypt got this much is over 100 years ago.

Watching the weather maps and satellite images on television here in Germany one can see the great loops of cold air rippling down from the Arctic and bringing the heavy stuff and the cold down over the North Eastern US and over Central and Eastern Europe into Turkey and the countries south of it.

I now eagerly await the IPCC and Greenpeace et all 'explaining' how all this is 'Climate Change' and 'Anthropomorphic Global Warming'. Should be some very creative ideas and suggestions in there. They still don't seem to want to acknowledge that the Antarctic ice sheet has grown in the last few years - the Emperor penguin population has an extra 35 kilometres to walk to their winter nesting spot as a result. Perhaps we can hope for an acknowledgement of some of the uncertainties in their 'models' at last? I won't hold my breath though.

Funny what a little research turns up ...

To all those currently falling for the Greenpeace/IPCC hand-wringing line that Typhoon Hainun/Yolande is "unprecedented" here are some reports from respected newspapers that show a different picture. This is not the first time Tacloban has been 'wiped out' by a typhoon. Nor is it likely, I suspect, to be the last time.

So where was the Anthropomorphic Global Warming coming from in 1912? The fact is the storm of 1912 killed many more than this latest Super Typhoon, yet, according to Greenpeace, Dr Hansen and all the other IPCC 'scientists' - CO2 was around two thirds of its present level. Population was around a quarter of the present total even in the populous Far East.

Can we have less hype, and more factual reporting in the media please?

The New Religion

It would seem the much touted 'Climate Change Conference' in Warsaw has ended without managing to make any binding resolutions. This has disappointed the promoters, Greenpeace et al, since they had played all the usual emotive cards including the images of the super typhoon damage in the Philippines. We have been treated to earnest declarations by various delegates and Greenpeace spokespeople that Europe (and Poland, their host nation in particular) were 'causing' these super storms by our continued 'carbon emissions' and consumption of 'carbon' fuels.

The Polish coal burning power plants (of course accompanied by lots of footage of steam billowing from cooling towers and blather about the 'smoke' being toxic) came in for special opprobrium coupled with emotional appeals to shut down the coal industry. The mantra is that this will save the planet, improve the health of the Polish people and generally stop 'Climate Change'. It would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that these people evidently fervently believe what they are saying. The are missionaries for the new world religion. It has a number of names, ecology, climate change, renewable energy, sustainable resources - all under the general banner of "Green". Green is good, Green is great, Green will save us all from all manner of problems, from nuclear fallout to melting ice caps and drowning polar bears. What it won't do is provide jobs, food or anything like a modern society - but don't try to explain that to any of the "True Believers".

It has been said that if there is one thing about life that is constant, it is change. Change is all around us in everything from our bodies to the environment. It is true to say that simply moving from one room to another changes not just the location we occupy but the rooms and ourselves. So it is with the planet. It has been in a state of change since it first began to form, and it will continue to do so until finally the sun itself destroys us and the rest of the solar system.

But the new religion would have us believe that we are, first, changing the climate and destroying the planet, a charge based on data which is less than 200 years old, and only 30 or so if we assume that only the satellite and 'modern' data are 'accurate'. The problem here is that in order to fit it into the various mathematical models so it can be 'analysed' it has been adjusted, manipulated and managed to the point of uselessness. As they say, with computers, if you input garbage, you get garbage out, but to the True Believer of the Green Religion, if 'science' - read the PR handouts and Press Releases from Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth or WWF and others - says 'X' is happening, and it is caused by those nasty Europeans, Americans, Canadians, etc., then it must be so. Get out the banners, occupy their streets, scale the buildings, dig up the test crop fields and behave like the Luddites of the 19th Century England.

The second part of the New Creed is that if we stop emitting 'carbon' we can stop the climate changing. According to the adherents and True Believers by returning to a pre-industrial dependence on wind power, water wheels and cottage industries, we can stop climate change, prevent super storms and maintain our current life style. Facts, unfortunately, are against them, but why let facts interfere with belief?

Destroy industrialisation, redistribute wealth, save the planet. The True Believers don't believe anything a real scientist says, they aren't interested. If it challenges the Green Truth it must be rejected, discredited and, if necessary, the foot soldiers mobilised to trash the project.

One reason the Warsaw has now packed up with, dare one say it, yet again, no workable or even credible decisions or agreements, is, I suspect, that politicians have finally woken up to the real agenda and the real cost of the 'Green Religion'. Put simply, we can't afford it. The new Australian government has scrapped the previous government's "Carbon Tax" which produced the ridiculous situation where one of the worlds largest coal producers was taxing its own industries out of business, while exporting the coal to be burned in China and India. Makes a lot of sense that does! We have the ridiculous situation in the UK where the Drax Mega Power station has been converted to burn "renewable" wood chips instead of coal. OK, except the wood chips are shipped from the US and Canada, and the consumption (wood isn't nearly as efficient a fuel as coal) means vast tracts of forest in both the US and Canada are being cut down to feed a power station 7,000 miles away which is built on top of a coal field. Yes, very 'green' I'm sure, but Greenpeace trumpets that this is a 'success'.

A trawl of the web reveals a very large number of things Greenpeace and 'Greens' in general oppose and are prepared to take 'direct action' (read terror tactics) to prevent. Some readers will remember the Brent Spar fiasco, but that was simply one of many where the Greenpeace 'science' has been or can be shown to be complete trash and fantasy - but the True Believers simply ignore the evidence. In Australia recently, Greenpeace activists were found guilty of criminal damage when they destroyed Greenhouses where scientists were growing Golden Rice, a carotene enriched rice strain that is intended to combat the large numbers of children and adults whose diet is rice based, and who go blind because the strains they currently eat, are deficient in a number of vital vitamins and minerals, not least being Vitamin A. The judge handed down suspended sentences because the convicted terror squad were all minors, pointing out as she did so, that Greenpeace had anticipated the criminal charges that would follow and deliberately used minors for its action.

When you realise that the man who currently heads Greenpeace International holds a DPhil in Political Sociology, not 'science', and has a long record of 'activism' against almost everything to do with Western values, economics and life, you begin to see a pattern. The Church of Greenpeace now operates a fleet of three ships permanently with up to three more when necessary, it has an annual budget of over 250 million pounds sterling and fingers in almost every sphere of protest activity, one can see why they rely so heavily on sensational claims which the media obligingly publishes as 'fact'.

Science has now been corrupted by this and its sister churches. Science which doesn't support their Credo must be howled down, the scientists muzzled, and if that isn't possible, then they must be intimidated. The 'Creed' of Climate Change must be protected at all costs, and the ignorant foot soldiers happily rush to 'march' with their puerile slogans. Any opportunity to disrupt society, to destroy the livelihoods and the activities which have given us the modern conveniences and lifestyles we enjoy. As a result billions of pounds is being poured into attempts to 'stop climate change' when we would be better served by putting it toward projects designed to help us adapt. Like Golden Rice, or any of the other useful adaptive projects currently targeted by Greenpeace True Believers and either underfunded or discredited by the pseudo-science that pours from Greenpeace 'laboratories' - the results always then selectively reported to support the Cause. When they can't do that, Photoshop, old photos, staged events and straightforward fabrication will do nicely. After all, the Media aren't going to challenge it, and the public simply can't tell the difference.

One hopeful sign is that there are now reports that more and more politicians are starting to see through the hype. Some have been brave enough to call a halt, others feel they must be more subtle. Frankly, the only way to deal with these terrorists in our midst is to meet them head on. Cut the massive funding that goes to Greenpeace et al from governments. Confront them publicly when they oppose something on flimsy or fabricated evidence. Let's put them in court every time some of their members commit crimes.

The New Religion of Green is a mix of misguided 'faith', belief in myths generated by PR experts, and the cynical exploitation of the media, education and young people deceived by it all into lives of 'activism'. We treat religions which promote violence and disobedience with the strict application of national and international law. It is time this new 'religion' was treated the same way. Having the 'right' to do something, does not automatically make it 'right' to do it. A lesson there, I think for everyone.

Propaganda versus fact?

Last night I watched the latest Greenpeace stunt, the occupation of the roof of a public building in Warsaw to unfurl banners, in English I noted, demanding to know "Who Rules Poland? The People or King Coal?" Their spokesman earnestly informed the television interviewer that unless Europe stops burning coal and all other hydrocarbons, "Climate Change will continue unchecked and millions more will die in superstorms like Hainan/Yolande". Of course, Poland is a target at the moment, because their government has, in my view wisely, rejected the "carbon" mythology and is building more coal fired power stations. There are sound economic and political reasons for this. Not least being the 200,000 jobs the coal industry supports, but secondly, and perhaps more importantly, because it makes Poland independent of Russian gas supplies for power.

Germany, on the other hand, is now so far down the road of "wind and solar only" that reversing it will be costly and probably politically explosive. Yet, according to economists in the UK and Europe, the rush to renewables is destroying industries (One of Germany's largest employers BASF is contemplating shutting their largest plant because of energy costs) and jobs. Private householders are already complaining about the cost of heating, lighting and cooking, and finding 'cheaper petrol' is a national sport.

On the same news broadcast we had word that the Russians are still pondering what to do with the Greenpeace activists who tried to occupy their drill rig in the Arctic. The report suggested that hefty fines were being contemplated for some while the piracy charge remains on the table for others. There are several very material issues here, none of which seem to make contact with the Greenpeace foot soldiers ideological aims. Not least is that these Green policies are destroying Western economies, and the more damage they do, the more unemployed we will have to support, the higher our taxes will go and the less competitive we will be. Who then will pay for these Greenpeace stunts?

To proclaim that Europe's contribution of a trace gas to the atmosphere is going to lead to the devastation of entire nations is just nonsense. So is the claim that we can "manage" the Global Climate in any way, shape or form. The day I see all the Greenpeace members standing at the Low Tide Mark in the Severn and holding back the tide I'll change my view. Until then, let them get real, get a life and live in reality.

Here are some of the facts the Climate Change adherents refuse to acknowledge -

1. The latest and most honest assessments and data sets show there has been NO noticeable warming in the last 17 years,
2. The number of 'super storms' including hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, tornadoes, etc., is no higher in frequency and the incidence of "Super" Hurricanes and Typhoons is about the same or less than in the 1970s and below the average for the late 19th and early 20th Centuries,
3. Other scientific disciplines suggest that the rise in CO2 FOLLOWS warming and doesn't lead it,
4. The Greenland ice sheet did not vanish two years ago when news reports ran with headlines that 97% of it had melted. The actual data suggested that there was some melting on the surface ice over 97% of the surface.
5. The Antarctic continental ice is NOT vanishing and the continent is NOT warming.
6. The steam plumes above cooling towers so beloved of Greenpeace propagandists is NOT 'new' water vapour being added to the atmosphere, it is water vapour already present condensing in the plume,
7. "Carbon" and Sulphur emissions have gone down across Europe, but the demand for energy is rising and "Green" energy simply can't cover it,
8. "Capacity" from windmills is not the same as "delivery" of power to a grid. So the capacity may be to provide 17% of what is needed, but reality is that it is generally averaging 5% or less. 
9. Hooking the windmills into the national grid is a hugely expensive exercise, currently paid for by massive cross subsidies which are pushing energy prices beyond the reach of the poorer elements of society and many pensioners - plus wind farm operators are guaranteed payment, even for power not used. The perfect golden egg if you own wind farms, and Greenpeace reaps huge profits from its shareholdings in these monsters,
10. Rising energy prices fuel inflation, drive businesses into shifting to lower cost operations or even relocating complete operations. That costs jobs, pushes the cost of unemployment up, and to pay for that tax must rise,
11. Since all economies are based on the "Balance" between imports, exports and local tax raising, if exports decline, and jobs decline, tax income also falls. As the balance swings toward ever more costly importation of necessities, the value of the currency slips as well. The final result is a country as poor as some of the failed states one now sees in Africa.

If we are serious about preserving our current standards of living, and of improving the lives of our citizens, it is time to kick the likes of Greenpeace into touch and adopt more sensible policies on energy, development and economics than those they advocate. We cannot control the climate, therefore we must find ways to adapt. We all know the oil and gas may eventually run out, as will some of the other minerals and materials we need to sustain us. So we need to find new sources and that may well mean taking a science fiction option and developing the ability to mine our solar system. Who knows, that may actually be far more cost effective than the current ecologically devastating operations needed to make solar panels, fancy batteries and the infernal wind turbines.

The Alarming Cost of 'Green'

The news yesterday that the UK's Prime Minister and his government are considering reducing the tax on energy generators and suppliers because of the impact these have had on energy prices, is welcome, but it will not be popular among the terminally ideological 'global warming' promoters and their supporters. The problem is that all this effort to 'control' the climate is a waste of time, and worse, it is an expensive vanity project. One that is pouring taxpayers and energy users money into the coffers of certain "green" orgainisations. I recently learned that Greenpeace is the owner of a number of wind farms and has major share holding in several 'green energy' suppliers - all of whom are in receipt of major subsidies from various governments.

But energy is just the tip of a very large mountain these organisations are constructing for us. One which is already causing some severe damage to economies in the west.

Yesterday I got tired of hearing the likes of Al Gore, various Australian "Greens" and a Greenpeace 'spokesperson' spouting total garbage about the latest series of disastrous bush fires in New South Wales being definitely the result of Climate Change/Global Warming. My ire was really raised when that journal from which I have long derived so much pleasure and information, the National Geographic, prints an article of truly alarmist garbage which included the statement that we are 'on course for an average global temperature of 50 degrees', completely ignoring the fact that to achieve this  would require a uniform temperature distribution and probably an atmospheric concentration of Carbon Dioxide that would wipe out animal life.

What all of these commentators refuse to acknowledge on every issue, is that their refusal, in Australia, to allow regular and managed control of the highly inflammable vegetation the continent is infested by, guarantees that every ten years or so, there will be exactly these sorts of mega-fires. Coupled with the ever increasing exposure of property and people to these hazards, guarantees that there will be massive property losses and life risks. But, of course, it isn't the fault of not allowing sensible bush management. No. Not at all. In their minds, its all because of Anthropomorphic Climate Change.

In these people's speeches one never hears of the role the oceans play in the climate. Oceanographers, and a small number of climatologists know that the major engine driving the climate is the massive expanse of ocean covering the planet. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the matching Atlantic bodies move and their position determines who gets hot weather, where the rain and snow fall and so on. Similar engines in the Great Southern Ocean determine where the rain hits - either Australia or South America in the Pacific basin, or Southern Africa and the eastern side of South America in the Atlantic. Another similar circulation in the Indian Ocean decides who gets hammered by the monsoon rains.Talk to an oceanographer, not to a Greenpeace mouthpiece or Al Gore. Get the facts, look at all the evidence, don't just assume that because some 'expert' says it, its true - he or she may be vying for a nice research grant handout and will say whatever will secure it.

I get tired of hearing that the damage along the US East Coast as a result of Sandy, the super storm (it had ceased to be a 'Hurricane' by the time it came ashore) was 'proof' that sea levels are rising. If you build on the seaward face of a dune field, and there's a storm, expect damage. As for the sea levels 'rising' in New York, there is a geographic explanation. The surface load of buildings, people and traffic on Manhattan is actually causing the island to 'sink' slightly. The Tide Gauge used to detect the rise is over a 100 years old and has never been recalibrated. This is often pointed out by geologists, but always brushed aside by the climatists who prefer their version and whose intractably anti-human attitudes are costing western society its economies, jobs, technological development and the ability to move forward.

At every turn, if we examine the costs of "green" policies, actions and restrictions we find that the cost far exceeds any supposed benefit. Indeed, the actions are frequently making the problems worse, so what exactly is the point?

Frankly, I begin to think that the majority of those who support the 'green' cause are responding to emotive and selected propaganda, not to a balanced image of the facts. They often don't know that CO2 is a 'trace' gas and fall for Gore's hyped numbers which are at best misleading. They don't understand that more CO2 means more plant growth, thus addressing one of the 'concerns' they espouse of 'global famine'. They don't know that their favourite NGOs and protest organisations involving them in 'direct action' are multi-million pound enterprises, managed and directed by ideologues who draw down massive salaries and perks - frequently also radical anti-society campaigners with anti-capitalist credentials.

Why is Greenpeace so opposed to the cleanest energy available - nuclear? It wouldn't have anything to do with their top directors all having CND credentials now would it? Why no mention of the ecological damage and cost of building wind farms, barrages or solar panels? It wouldn't have anything to do with the millions they and Greenpeace et al make from their investments in these industries now would it? Perish the thought.

It is time to call a halt to this self indulgent campaigning by the ill-informed and misguided, manipulated by some very shady ideological figures who have taken control of some well-intentioned movements. There are vast amounts of money to be made - for them - and the rest of us are being fleeced by their scam. Mr Cameron wants to remove the tax on the energy companies, but instead of removing it entirely, he plans to shift it to the 'general' tax base.

Yes, the Directors of Greenpeace and all the other 'Green' organisations are laughing all the way to the bank. They have a Goose laying Golden Eggs for them, it's names are Climate Change and Anthropomorphic Global Warming, and, until those who believe their propaganda and rally to demand 'something must be done' at every turn wise up and start checking the facts - we're all going to pay to make a small group rich, and destroy our own economic position into the bargain.

A little knowledge ...

As the saying goes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I was struck by this yesterday as I read the comments to a fairly comprehensive article about the hazards presented by certain 'designer' drugs currently returning to popularity among the younger scene. One commentator, responding to someone else who had, rather bluntly, pointed out that people who use drugs of unknown provenance, and die of the effects of bad reactions and impurities, are actually exercising a Darwinian "natural selection" response, came back with a rather ignorant attack about the first commentator dying nastily of cancer "caused by the GMO food you eat".

Recently there have been a number of serious scientific responses to the so-called ecologists and others who have campaigned to have Genetically Modified crops banned on the grounds they MAY cause diseases, spread uncontrollably or decimate insect populations. The irony does seem to escape them that virtually everything we eat today is "genetically modified" in some way. In fact, one reason we see so much Celiac Disease (sensitivity to gluten) is that the wheat we eat today is very different from that cultivated a thousand years ago, and different again from wheat grown even two hundred years ago. Modern wheat, has been developed by selective cross pollination of different grass species over the millennia since it was first cultivated. It is a hybrid, and today does not produce pollen and does not self propagate. However, the result of the wholesale transfer of genes from one grass species to another, and then from one hybridised wheat strain to another, is why the gluten content of modern wheat is high enough to cause allergies.

Another of the major causes of rising allergy sensitivities is pesticide usage. GM crops use far less of this, so the exposure is reduced in the consumer, which is not the case in the normal strains the campaigners don't want replaced. Once again, we hear of the Bio-foods being better and healthier, but, if you use natural fertilisers (cow droppings, pig droppings, etc., you are actually increasing the likelihood of spreading e-coli, listeria and a few other nasties including tetanus. Plus, not using pesticides (so-called natural pesticides are terribly inefficient), means that loss of crops to slugs, beetles, caterpillars and so on reduces yields and increases prices. Bio-food can never produce anything like the volumes of food required to feed the world's current population. Its exponents actually reveal either a naiveté or are concealing the fact they actually want to reduce world populations drastically and return the globe to their idealised vision of a perfect human/natural balance.

What the GM crop developers have done is splice in selected genetic material ( a technique really only possible in the last 40 or so years) to reduce the gluten content, make wheat more resistant to things like Ergot (a toxic fungus now known to have triggered the Salem Witch hunts), to attack by insects and drought. Once again, the hysteria by the anti-GM activists, fuelled by irresponsible headlines like "Frankenfoods given the go-ahead", and even more irresponsibly emotive reporting which highlighted "the risks" without pointing out that all the testing and all the trials had shown these to be almost non-existent was whipped to a frenzy. It followed exactly the same pattern as the anti-innoculation campaigns run by a small group of campaigners and based entirely on their own fear.

As a recent article I read on this subject points out, often the anti-campaigners have a hidden agenda. They are opposed to the commercial interests developing and marketing the GM foods, or the vaccines. They want a world filled with benevolent governments where everything is free to everyone, and hate commerce - so they attack the product on the grounds of "public concern for safety/the environment". The result, in the case of GM foods, is that genetically modified crops which could go a long way to alleviating the regular famines in Africa, are now universally banned from those countries that would reap the most benefit. Rice, which is very low in Vitamin A, but is a staple food in the Far East and many other countries is a major problem. However, the GM version, modified to produce the Vitamin A and address some other deficiencies, is banned, and not grown - ostensibly because of fears over its 'safety' but the reality is the political opposition to the US based firm which developed it.

There is no evidence to support the claims that eating GM foods can increase allergic reactions, rather the opposite, yet throughout Europe the "Greens" campaign against it on the grounds that it MIGHT. Likewise forty years of testing have failed to provide a link to cancer, but, again, the "Greens" shout loudly that one, very specially selective and now discredited trial by an anti-GM campaigner "proves" that there is such a risk. (The trial used specially bred rats that are very susceptible to tumours. They have been 'modified' so they will develop tumours and are generally used to test methods of controlling a tumour. And there must be an irony there, for an anti-GM campaigner to use a genetically modified rat to prove his case ...)

In almost all these campaigns fear is the driver for the wider majority. Few have more than a vague idea of what they are afraid of, or of precisely what is actually involved or modified. None I have met actually knew that the crops they were so keen to destroy don't self propagate, so cannot 'spread' across 'natural' plants and 'destroy the natural diversity'. The focus is always on the fact that some crops have been modified by splicing in segments of viral and bacterial genes, and their battle cry is always 'we don't know what will happen if it mutates'. Actually, the scientists and biologists do have a pretty good idea - that is what all the trials and tests are about. Nothing that can mutate into something dangerous ever leaves the lab now, the lessons of Thalidomide and a few others have been learned by the leading companies involved.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but far too many people today think that they can become experts on a subject by consulting Wikipedia or some other 'source' that reinforces their views. Sadly, it is impossible to debate with these folk, and because the media are currently locked into sensationalism, poor fact checking and emotive reporting, this is a debate that isn't going to happen any time soon. Probably not before all the anti-campaigners have succeeded in triggering the next major famine.