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|  | The Propaganda Continues VI
« Thread Started on Dec 29, 2009, 8:26pm » | |
Dreaming of a green Christmas
VIEWPOINT
Felix Dodds and Michael Strauss
Environmentalists Felix Dodds and Michael Strauss use this week's Green Room to pass on a message from a seasonal contributor. They write: "Though he usually prefers to act anonymously, he has been rumoured to be active in many different countries under various personae that include Father Christmas, Pere Noel, and San Nicolas."
Dear children,
As many of you know this time of year is very busy for me. The elves are also really busy, making the Obama dolls (although they appear to be less popular than last year), the train sets, and the computer games.
But before I pack up the sleigh and set off on this year's big ride, I wanted to share with you an update on how things are going.
I wanted to share with you some worries I have, because here at the North Pole it has been a difficult year.
Dancer hurt a leg earlier this year and almost had to be replaced in this year's team.
It happened during a spring training run, when the ice - which had always been very strong here - turned out to be much thinner than we expected, and she almost fell all the way through into the Arctic Sea.
Fortunately, she was soon on the mend, but it did give us quite a scare.
But the thin-ice issue really got my attention. I had already been noticing how much the weather had been changing over the past 10 years.
Changing times
The polar bears keep pointing out to me that they've had to travel much further to find solid ice and snow. The Arctic terns and puffins have been flying away and back at unusual times of the season. And the permafrost has been turning to mush near the coastlines, which means it no longer is permanent at all.
I've had to re-route the take-off and landing patterns on all my maps, and each year that has been making delivering the presents much more difficult.
So I decided to find just what was happening. And guess what I found out?
It is this thing called climate change.
I hadn't realised how much damage that all this travelling around had been doing and how much our lifestyles had impacted on the Earth. It seems to me as I looked back that we have been dashing to disaster.
But you might say what would I know? After all I am just Father Christmas.
Well, I read these Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Reports, which I have to say they were a little boring, but all these scientists from around the world have been saying the same thing and each of the reports they produce says things are getting worse.
They tell us that people's use of oil, gas and coal has been putting thousands of extra tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air. It's causing the Sun's heat to build up in the atmosphere of the Earth. The reports say things are getting worse and worse.
Well, now it's starting to affect everything all over the world. Giant storms are flooding coasts and valleys, even big cities.
Farmers aren't getting enough rain for their crops, so they are having trouble growing enough food for people to eat in many countries. Even those hot -weather animals like elephants, tigers and lions, are struggling terribly as their natural homelands disappear.
Green Pole
I have to say it put the frighteners under me. I thought what can I do. After all, I am just one person with a lot of elves and reindeer.
Well the first thing was to find out what my carbon footprint might be. Well blimey, it was a lot!
I mean, if you are delivering to all the good girls and boys around the world, that's a lot of methane from the resulting reindeer poo. Then there is the production of all the toys and, being in the North Pole, we need a lot of heating and lighting most of the year as it is cold and very dark.
I then thought I would see what the experts had to say, so I asked them to carry out an energy assessment of our operations. They found that most of our power needs could be delivered by renewable energy.
So, this year there has been lots of building work around the grotto.
We now have wind turbines, which are powering most of the workshop and the housing. The reindeer have fun racing around it.
I bought some nifty electric cars for the elves to move around in, and a small methane collection plant for the… well, you know, with reindeer, we do get a lot of it, for the heating.
Of course, with reindeer powering the sleigh, my air travel is extensive so I still needed to deal with the methane. I found a nice offset scheme that enabled me to contribute to a forest in Brazil.
I am proud to say we may not have reduced yet all our fossil fuel uses but we are close to doing so. I always say, where there is a will there is a way.
Brazil, one of my favourite places, is hosting a new Earth Summit in 2012.
And that brings me to the plea. I watched that chap Al Gore in Copenhagen who says we have to cut our emissions if we want to stabilize our temperature at 1.5-2.0C above pre-industrialised levels.
We had better do it, or I am going to have to replace the reindeer with camels if I am going to be able to deliver presents in the future.
So I am asking all of children out there - and you adults too - to let your president or prime minister know your views. Copenhagen was a start but not enough.
I will also keep an eye on those politicians too. I think some of them will not be on my list of good boys and girls next year. I hope I am wrong on that.
Anyway, I hope you each have a peaceful and wonderful holiday this year. Let's all try to make it a very merry green Christmas.
And let's remember to enjoy what we have, and to share it together.
Father Christmas
Felix Dodds is executive director of Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future, and Michael Strauss is executive director of Earth Media
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8426269.stm
Published: 2009/12/22 12:58:30 GMT
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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|  | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #1 on Dec 29, 2009, 8:28pm » | |
We must not accept Nopenhagen's failings
VIEWPOINT
Tim Aldred
World leaders must listen to the people who put them in power and quickly make amends for failing to deliver a binding climate deal in Copenhagen, says Tim Aldred. In this week's Green Room, he says time is not on our side, as many of the world's poorest nations are already feeling the effects of climate change.
“ We must spare no effort in carrying the voices of those most affected in poor countries to those in power who so spectacularly disappointed in Denmark ”
"Hopenhagen" - the epithet enthusiastically bestowed upon the recent climate talks in Denmark - has turned out to be not only a touch cheesy, but with hindsight, hopelessly misplaced and painfully mocking.
Aside from the to-be-expected justifications from the politicians themselves, rarely have verdicts on international summits been quite so united in their expressions of disappointment, derision and outright condemnation.
And yet ordinary citizens had made plain to their politicians what was required.
A week before I left for Copenhagen, I marched with 50,000 people in the streets of London - one of several thousand events held in 140 countries around the world.
An 11th-hour email petition, as the summit stumbled to a conclusion, attracted an extraordinary 14 million signatures. Millions of people were speaking, but were not being heard by the politicians.
After two years of build-up to Copenhagen, the highlights of what our politicians agreed in our name were:
• A near-global acknowledgement that global warming should be limited to less than 2C (3.6F), the degree of warming generally accepted as being "dangerous". Arguably, this was one of the top "successes" from Copenhagen
• Rich countries must register the emissions cuts they will make by 2020 by the end of January 2010. However, there is no guarantee that this will limit warming in the future as what countries announce they will cut is up to them
• New and additional money "approaching $30bn" will be channelled to poorer nations over the period 2010-12, and the goal of providing an annual sum of $100bn by 2020. But there remain real questions about whether a special Copenhagen Green Climate Fund will reach the target of $100bn, which many say is, at best, half of what is needed
But this is nowhere near enough. As ordinary citizens we must now redouble our efforts to get the politicians back to the negotiating table.
Something rotten
We must spare no effort in carrying the voices of those most affected in poor countries to those in power who so spectacularly disappointed in Denmark.
Here are two such responses from people with whom I work:
Firstly, Bruno Guemes, a development worker for Progressio in Peru:
"People here feel that these international summits are more of a power game rather than about meeting real need.
"In the valley of Huaral, one of the country's most fragile zones, where a third of people rely on small-scale farming to make a living and feed their families, glaciers and snow-caps are melting, rains are less frequent and water resources are running dry.
"In one community, people are taking decisive action in response to water shortages - all but the elderly are leaving their ancestral lands.
"If governments continue with a 'business as usual' approach to climate change - as they did in Copenhagen - we will be left alone."
Secondly, Angel Maria Ibarra Turcios, director of Salvadorian Ecological Unity:
"My first reaction to the outcome of the Copenhagen summit was one of indignation.
"We (the civil society) are not going to accept the failure of Copenhagen. The governments have failed, which means that we have to find new ways of civil society involvement.
"We have to find new partnerships between organisations in the North and the South.
"The Central American region is already experiencing climate change. We had a major drought last year, followed by a flooding. Two hundred people died.
"We are disappointed but not defeated. We'll keep working for a better tomorrow because we believe that the future has to be a future of peace and hope for the whole world."
It is the voices of people like Bruno and Angel, who face the realities of climate change every day, that can spur those of us in rich countries to do more than just change our light bulbs and put our televisions on standby.
We must play a part in changing the politics-as-usual approach to climate change. We must help to generate an irresistible mass movement of ordinary citizens in order to intensify the pressure around climate change - so that politicians will have to take brave action at the climate summit in Mexico in 2010.
They must hear that we do not accept this outcome from Copenhagen, and we demand that they do better.
They must hear that we are not going away and that we will come back stronger. If we allow this defeat to stop us as ordinary citizens from campaigning and bringing pressure, then the climate sceptics will have won. We cannot allow that to happen.
For some of us, taking greater action might mean joining one of the many development and environmental groups who constantly cajole and seek to persuade politicians to take faster and deeper action on climate change.
Wherever we live in the developed and developing world, if we have the opportunity, let us meet politicians, write letters, join campaigns, march on the streets as we did in our tens of thousands in the run-up to Copenhagen, but in vastly greater numbers.
In 12 months, we want the glow of success from the Mexico summit to make "Hopenhagen" seem like a bad dream.
Tim Aldred is head of policy for Progressio, an international development agency that works with poor communities in 11 countries
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8432927.stm
Published: 2009/12/29 11:12:40 GMT
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #2 on Dec 29, 2009, 9:13pm » | |
Copenhagen has given us the chance to face climate change with honesty
A carbon-use dividend for everybody must replace the old, ineffectual 'cap-and-trade' scheme
o James Hansen
o The Observer, Sunday 27 December 2009
![[image]](http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/1520/emissionschart001813987.jpg "[image]")
Chart showing emission trends.
Last weekend's minimalist Copenhagen global climate accord provides a great opportunity. The old deceitful, ineffectual approach is severely wounded and must die. Now there is a chance for the world to get on to an honest, effective path to an agreement.
The centrepiece of the old approach was a "cap-and-trade" scheme, festooned with offsets and bribes – bribes that purportedly, but hardly, reduced carbon emissions. It was analogous to the indulgences scheme of the Middle Ages, whereby sinners paid the Church for forgiveness.
In today's indulgences the sinners, developed countries, buy off developing countries by paying for "offsets" to their own emissions and providing reparation money for adaptation to climate change. But such hush money won't work. Yes, some developing country leaders salivated over the proffered $100 billion per year. But by buying in, they would cheat their children and ours. Besides, even the $100 billion hush money is fugacious. The US, based on its proportion of the fossil fuel carbon in the air today, would owe $27 billion per year. Chance of Congress providing that: dead zero. Maybe the UK will cough up its $6 billion per year and Germany its $7 billion per year. But who will collect Russia's $7 billion per year?
Most purchased "offsets" to fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions are hokey. But there is no need to flagellate the details of this modern indulgences scheme. Science provides an unambiguous fact that our leaders continue to ignore: carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning remains in the climate system for millennia. The only solution is to move promptly to a clean energy future.
The difficulty is that fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, if the price does not include the damage they do to human health, the planet, and the future of our children. "Goals" for future emission reductions, whether "legally binding" or not, are utter nonsense as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy. The Kyoto Protocol illustrates the deceit of our governments, which have not screwed up their courage to face down the fossil fuel industry. As the graph here shows, global fossil fuel emissions were increasing 1.5% per year prior to the 1997 Kyoto accord. After "Kyoto" emission growth accelerated to 3% per year. A few developed countries reduced their fossil fuel use. The only important effect of that was to slightly reduce demand for fuel, helping to keep its price down. The fuel was burned in other places, and products made were shipped back to developed countries.
As far as the planet is concerned, agreements to "cap" emissions, such as the Kyoto Protocol and the imagined Copenhagen Protocol, are worthless scraps of paper. As long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, they will be burned somewhere. This fact helps define a solution to the climate problem. Yes, people must make changes in the way they live. Countries must cooperate. Matters as intractable as population must be included. Technology improvements are required. Changes must be economically efficient. The climate solution necessarily will increase the price of fossil fuel energy. We must admit that. But in the end, energy efficiency and carbon-free energy can be made less expensive than fossil fuels, if fossil fuels' cost to society is included. The solution must have honesty, backbone and a fair international framework. We need a rising price on carbon applied at the source (the mine, wellhead, or port of entry). The fee will affect all activities that use fossil fuels, directly or indirectly. The entire fee collected from fossil fuel companies should be distributed to the public. In this fee-and-dividend approach people maintaining a carbon footprint smaller than average will receive more in the dividend than they pay via increased energy costs. The monthly dividend, deposited electronically in their bank account or on their debit card, will stimulate the economy and provide people with the means to increase their carbon efficiency. All that governments need do is divide the collected revenue by the number of shares, with half-shares for children, up to two children per family.
Some economists prefer a payroll tax deduction over a dividend, because taxes depress the economy. The problem is that about half of the public are not on payrolls, because of retirement or involuntary unemployment. I suggest that at most 50% of the collected carbon fee should be used for payroll tax deduction.
Cap-and-trade is the antithesis of this simple system. Cap-and-trade is a hidden tax, increasing energy costs, but with no public dividend. Its infrastructure costs the public, who also fund the profits of the resulting big banks and speculators. Cap-and-trade is advantageous only to energy companies with strong lobbyists and government officials who dole out proceeds from pollution certificates to favoured industries.
Fee-and-dividend, in contrast, is a non-tax – on average it is revenue-neutral. The public will probably accept a rise in the carbon fee rate, because their monthly dividend will increase correspondingly. As fee-and-dividend causes fossil fuel energy prices to rise, a series of points will be reached at which various carbon-free energies and carbon-saving technologies are cheaper than fossil fuels plus the fee. The market place will choose the best technology. As time goes on, fossil fuel use will collapse, coal will be left in the ground, and we will have arrived at a clean energy future. A rising carbon fee is essential for a climate solution. But how to achieve a fair international framework?
The critical requirement is that the United States and China agree to apply across-the-board carbon fees, at a relative rate to be negotiated. Why would China agree to a carbon fee? China does not want to be saddled with the problems that attend fossil fuel addiction such as those that plague the United States. Besides, China would be hit extraordinarily hard by climate change. A uniform rising carbon fee is the most economically efficient way for China to limit its fossil fuel dependence.
Copenhagen discussions showed that China and the United States can work together. Europe, Japan, and most developed countries would very probably agree to a similar status to that of the United States. Countries refusing to levy an across-the-board carbon fee can be dealt with via an import duty collected on products from that nation in accord with the amount of fossil fuel that goes into producing the product. The World Trade Organisation already has rules permitting such duties.
The international framework must define how proceeds from import duties are used to assure fairness. Duties on products from developing countries will probably dwarf present foreign aid to those countries. These funds should be returned to developing countries, but distributed so as to encourage best practices, for example, improved women's rights and education that helps control population growth. Fairness also requires that distribution of the funds takes account of the ongoing impacts of climate change. Successful efforts in limiting deforestation and other best practices could also be rewarded.
James Hansen was the first scientist to warn the US Congress of the dangers of climate change. The ideas discussed in this article are expanded on in his new book "Storms of My Grandchildren".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20....t-opportunities
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #3 on Jan 5, 2010, 9:19pm » | |
Do we need to say our prayers?
VIEWPOINT
Greig Whitehead
For millions of people in Africa, climate change is a reality, says Greig Whitehead. However, as he explains in this week's Green Room, in religious nations such as Kenya, many believe that tackling global warming is beyond their control.
“ Even with trust in the power of God, Kenya is a country on the brink of disaster ”
Kenya is a deeply religious country.
Christians, Muslims and Hindus alike assemble for regular and often lengthy worship; prayers are offered up before and after every public meeting, and even before starting a cross-country "safari", the god of one's faith is called on to bless the journey.
So it comes as no surprise to hear a female pastoralist from the arid lands of North-East Kenya decrying the combined wisdom of the world's scientists, after being told that climate change is man-made.
"How can man change the climate and make it stop raining: it is God's will that has brought the drought," she utters.
But even with trust in the power of God, Kenya is a country on the brink of disaster.
As news reports show, the country's rivers are drying, its more remote areas are turning to desert, and the food chain - from land, to animals, to humans - is breaking down.
The ramifications of the rural drought now stretch to the streets of Nairobi, where five million people face daily power rationing, severe water shortages and higher food prices.
In battle terms, Kenya is on the frontline; it is staring climate change in the face.
Climate for change
But to deal with the global phenomenon, Kenya's "wananchi" (citizens) need to understand the complex of challenges they are up against, including a range of home-grown factors.
A growing population, coupled with insufficient investment in rural infrastructure and land management, makes it even more difficult to adapt to climate change and stave off the impending disasters brought by human induced global warming.
For the future of Kenya, it is vital that practical solutions are found to meet people's concerns and help build sustainable systems that are less vulnerable to increasingly unpredictable weather patterns.
Most importantly, it is up to the youth of Kenya to take up the fight on climate change; to succeed where their elders are failing and to inspire a new generation to change their thinking and adapt their ways.
There are more than 4,000 secondary schools across Kenya, and apart from their purely academic function, most of them play a key role as a focal point for the surrounding community.
Secondary schools are well place to act as catalysts for community action.
The 12% of youth fortunate to attend these schools - the country's future leaders - have the knowledge and abilities to become "change-agents", able to motivate people to develop a better understanding of the causes and impacts of environmental degradation.
This then provides a foundation on which to discuss and take action.
'Here and now'
Climate change is about the here and now in Kenya, already seriously affecting the wellbeing of millions of people.
It is a salutary warning for the more affluent countries in the North that a problem which - in essence - they have created, through industrialisation and development, will in time rebound to affect their own livelihoods.
Climate change is a global issue transcending national boundaries, but impacting first on those who can least afford to cope with the consequences.
The "God not man" cry from the lady in Kenya's northern reaches illustrates a common problem relating to understanding the underlying causes, and underscores the incapability of people in such situations to deal with the crisis that has impacted so severely on their communities.
As Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, notes:
"Climate change will bring massive ecological and economic challenges… therefore, alleviating dehumanising poverty will become even more difficult."
One of the keys to enable understanding and adaptation is to harness the power and ingenuity of youth. As Kefa Kones Kibet, a 17-year-old from Nakuru High School in Kenya's Rift Valley, remarks:
"Climate change causes suffering for people. Many people in Africa walk for miles in search of water.
"Women are the ones who suffer most because they are the ones who look out for the family. People should be educated on how to plant trees and how best to use the little water available.
"The only way to curb climate change is through action now for a better tomorrow."
Greig Whitehead is programme manager for the International Climate Challenge, Kenya
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/8434059.stm
Published: 2010/01/05 10:51:19 GMT
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #4 on Jan 9, 2010, 1:30pm » | |
Britain's cold snap does not prove climate science wrong
Climate sceptics are failing to understand the most basic meteorology - that weather is not the same as climate, and single events are not the same as trends
![[image]](http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/2549/burygreatermanchesters0.jpg "[image]")
Snow in Bury, Greater Manchester. Why is there a national outpouring of idiocy every time some snow falls? Photograph: Christopher Thomond
It's as predictable a feature of the British winter as log fires and roasting chestnuts: a national outpouring of idiocy every time some snow falls.
Here's what Martyn Brown says in today's Express:
As one of the worst winters in 100 years grips the country, climate experts are still trying to claim the world is growing warmer.
There's a clue as to where he might have gone wrong in that sentence: "country" has a slightly different meaning to "world". Buried at the bottom of the same article is the admission that " ... other areas including Alaska, Canada and the Mediterranean were warmer than usual." But that didn't stop Brown from using the occasion to note that "critics of the global warming lobby said the public were no longer prepared to be conned into believing that man-made emissions were adding to the problem."
The ability to distinguish trends from complex random events is one of the traits that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. It is also the basis of all science; detecting patterns, distinguishing between signal and noise, and the means by which the laws of physics, chemistry and biology are determined. Now we are being asked to commit ourselves to the wilful stupidity of extrapolating a long-term trend from a single event.
The Express would have us return to the days in which the future course of human affairs could be predicted by solar eclipses and the appearance of comets. It has clearly made a calculated decision in recent months that climate scepticism plays to its readership - and therefore shifts papers - just as the daily drip-feed of conspiracy theories about Princess Diana and Madeleine McCann has done in the past.
Brown is by no means alone in his idiocy. On Sunday, the Telegraph and the Mail published almost identical articles; one by Christopher Booker, the other by his long-term collaborator, Richard North. Both claimed that the Met Office had predicted a mild winter, and that it had made this prediction because it has been "hijacked" by a group of fanatics - led first by its former chief executive Sir John Houghton, now by the current boss Robert Napier - who stand accused of seeking to to corrupt forecasts to make them conform to their theories on climate change.
If this story were true, it would be huge: the UK's official weather forecasting service is deliberately changing its forecasts to make them fit a political agenda. It would also be fantastically stupid, as forecasts can always be checked against delivery. Booker and North offer no evidence to support this humongous conspiracy theory, just a load of unrelated facts cobbled together in the usual fashion.
Even their premise – that the Met Office "confidently predicted a warmer than average winter for Britain" - is wrong. Here's what it actually said:
Early indications are that it's looking like temperatures will be near or above average. But there's still a one in seven chance of a cold winter – with temperatures below average.
No confidence there, no certainty, and no single prediction. But Booker and North use the presumed contrast between the forecast (which was, of course, for the whole winter) and the current event to imply not only that climate change is a giant conspiracy coordinated by the Met Office, but that long-term temperatures are not rising. North suggests that the regional cold snap derails the global temperature prediction for the whole of 2010.
Echoing each other's fantasies, extracting sweeping conclusions from single events, these two are like the Old Man and Ross in Macbeth.
John Redwood, the Tory MP for Wokingham, was at it in the Commons yesterday, too, when putting a question to Ed Miliband, after the secretary of state for climate change and energy had made a statement about the Copenhagen climate change conference.
Redwood: Why are we in the northern hemisphere having such a very cold winter this year? Which climate model predicted that?
Miliband: I can hardly believe that question, Mr Deputy Speaker. The weather fluctuates, as anyone knows, and the notion that a cold spell in Britain disproves the science of climate change is something that I believe not even the Right Hon. Gentleman believes.
Redwood was evidently not happy with the "weather fluctuates" response and returned to the issue this morning on his blog:
I was expecting some answer that told me you can have severe winters within a pattern of global warming, with reference to some climate change model analysis which allowed for adverse variations within the assumed pattern of warming. How wrong I was. Instead Mr M threw his toys out of the pram, declined to offer a civil answer to a civil question, and told me the science of global warming was settled! Some other MP from a sedentary position offered the profound advice that I needed to understand climate was different from weather.
It's a pity really that he didn't listen to the profoundly obvious advice being offered by the MP in the sedentary position, but that would have undermined his climate scepticism that oh-so-conveniently chimes with his free-market, anti-EU, rightwing views. But isn't that the story with so much of the climate scepticism on offer these days? It seems to be far less about genuine scientific scepticism and more about confirmation bias of a politicised world view.
One wonders, too, how Australia's legion of climate sceptics are currently spinning today's news from the country's Bureau of Meteorology which states that the past 10 years were officially the hottest decade since records began.
Yes, it is colder than usual in some parts of the northern hemisphere, and warmer than usual in others. Alaska and northern Canada are 5-10C warmer than the average for this time of year, so are North Africa and the Mediterranean. The cold and the warmth could be related: the contrasting temperatures appear to be connected to blocks of high pressure preventing air flow between the land and the sea.
This is called weather, and, believe it or not, it is not always predictable and it changes quite often. It is not the same as climate, and single events are not the same as trends. Is this really so hard to understand?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bl....limate-sceptics
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #5 on Jan 10, 2010, 2:07am » | |
Climate change scepticism will increase hardship for world's poor: IPCC chief
Rajendra Pachauri predicts lobbying will intensify to impede progress to agreement on binding treaty in Mexico City
* Adam Vaughan
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 January 2010 16.42 GMT
Climate change scepticism is likely to surge in 2010 and could exacerbate "hardship" for the planet's poorest people, one of the world's leading authorities on climate change has told the Guardian.
Writing on environmentguardian.co.uk today, Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also dismisses suggestions that he is personally profiting from policies to tackle global warming.
Climate sceptics gained media attention in the run up to the Copenhagen climate summit after alleging that hacked emails between senior climate scientists showed that an important temperature record was flawed — a charge rejected by governments and scientific bodies. In Australia, sceptics within the party led to the ousting of the leader of the opposition over new climate laws.
Pachauri predicted this year would see further scepticism. "Powerful vested interests are perhaps likely to get overactive in the coming months, and would perhaps do everything in their power to impede progress towards a binding agreement that is hoped for by the end of 2010 in Mexico City," he said. "Those opposed to action on climate change are working overtime to see that they can stall action for as long as possible."
After a weak deal in Copenhagen, Pachauri warned that allowing scepticism to delay international action on global warming would endanger the lives of the world's poorest people. "In the end, knowledge and science will undoubtedly triumph, but delay in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases would only lead to worse impacts of climate change and growing hardship for the most vulnerable regions in the world, which are also unfortunately some of the poorest communities on Earth."
Pachauri, a vegetarian, has previously described western lifestyles as unsustainable and advocated a diet including one meat-free day a week. He singled out lobbyists in the US for attempting to delay America's climate legislation, which is crucial for a global deal but is currently stalled in the Senate. Last year the Centre for Public Integrity found that 770 companies and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence US policies on climate change, while America's oil, gas and coal industry increased its lobbying budget by 50%.
Pachauri said action from President Obama would be needed on top of Senate legislation. "The passage of legislation in that country [the US] will have to be supplemented with several initiatives to be put in place by the executive branch of the government," Pachauri said.
Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said Pachauri was right on the level of sceptical activity. "We are already witnessing extraordinary efforts by powerful lobbies, in the US and Australia in particular, which are opposed to the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. There is a strong alliance of ideologically driven right-wingers, who reject environmental legislation on principle, and lobbyists for some hydrocarbon companies, who place the short-term commercial interests of their clients ahead of the wider public interest. Both have the common goal of delaying restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, and both use the tactics pioneered by the tobacco industry, hiding their true motivations behind inaccurate and misleading claims about uncertainties in the science."
But Tony Kreindler of the Environmental Defence Fund, which has been following US climate legislation, said the number of climate sceptic lobbyists was now being matched by companies supporting legislation to cap carbon emissions. However, he added: "Opponents of action and the old sceptics will of course ramp up their lobbying this year as well, as they do anytime the Congress is on the verge of making law. We already have a bill through the House of Representatives and a bipartisan effort underway in the Senate. The President made his commitment clear in Copenhagen to legislation because it's in our national interest. This year is not a dress rehearsal, and everyone on both sides gets that."
On the stolen emails, Pachauri said the contents did not impact on climate science, adding that "the allegations made on the basis of the stolen emails have proved incorrect."
The University of East Anglia is currently undertaking an independent review of the hacking incident, led by senior civil servant Sir Muir Russell. The review is expected to be published in the spring, but a university spokesman said today that Sir Russell will "determine his final timescale after completing his initial scoping exercise". He added that the university had also responded to a letter from the science and technology committee of MPs asking for an explanation of the incident. The IPCC is conducting its own review into the stolen emails.
Pachauri also rebutted claims in The Sunday Telegraph that, through advisory roles for Deutsche Bank, Toyota, Yale University, the Asian Development Bank and others, he was reaping personal financial gain from climate change policies that could be influenced by the reports of the IPCC he chairs. The article claimed Pachauri had been silent on the "highly lucrative commercial jobs", the rewards from which "must run into millions".
In response, he said: "The same group of climate deniers who have been active across the Atlantic have now joined hands to attack me personally. As for pecuniary benefits from advice that I may be rendering to profit-making organisations, these payments are all made directly to my institute, without a single penny being received by me."
The Nobel Peace-prize winning Pachauri called for greater activism and more campaigning to press governments into taking strong action on carbon emissions this year. "Society and grassroots action would have to come into their own, not only to ensure that human society takes responsibility for action at the most basic level, but also to create upward pressure on governments to act decisively. If such grassroots efforts do not spread and intensify, nation states may not be able to resolve the differences that exist between them."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20....jendra-pachauri
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #6 on Jan 10, 2010, 2:10am » | |
After this 60-year feeding frenzy, Earth itself has become disposable
Consumerism has, as Huxley feared, changed all of us – we'd rather hop to a brave new world than rein in our spending
o George Monbiot
o guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 January 2010 20.30 GMT
Who said this? "All the evidence shows that beyond the sort of standard of living which Britain has now achieved, extra growth does not automatically translate into human welfare and happiness." Was it a) the boss of Greenpeace, b) the director of the New Economics Foundation, or c) an anarchist planning the next climate camp? None of the above: d) the former head of the Confederation of British Industry, who currently runs the Financial Services Authority. In an interview broadcast last Friday, Lord Turner brought the consumer society's most subversive observation into the mainstream.
In our hearts most of us know it is true, but we live as if it were not. Progress is measured by the speed at which we destroy the conditions that sustain life. Governments are deemed to succeed or fail by how well they make money go round, regardless of whether it serves any useful purpose. They regard it as a sacred duty to encourage the country's most revolting spectacle: the annual feeding frenzy in which shoppers queue all night, then stampede into the shops, elbow, trample and sometimes fight to be the first to carry off some designer junk which will go into landfill before the sales next year. The madder the orgy, the greater the triumph of economic management.
As the Guardian revealed today, the British government is now split over product placement in television programmes: if it implements the policy proposed by Ben Bradshaw, the culture secretary, plots will revolve around chocolates and cheeseburgers, and advertisements will be impossible to filter, perhaps even to detect. Bradshaw must know that this indoctrination won't make us happier, wiser, greener or leaner; but it will make the television companies £140m a year.
Though we know they aren't the same, we can't help conflating growth and wellbeing. Last week, for instance, the Guardian carried the headline "UK standard of living drops below 2005 level". But the story had nothing to do with our standard of living. Instead it reported that per capita gross domestic product is lower than it was in 2005. GDP is a measure of economic activity, not standard of living. But the terms are confused so often that journalists now treat them as synonyms. The low retail sales of previous months were recently described by this paper as "bleak" and "gloomy". High sales are always "good news", low sales are always "bad news", even if the product on offer is farmyard porn. I believe it's time that the Guardian challenged this biased reporting.
Those who still wish to conflate welfare and GDP argue that high consumption by the wealthy improves the lot of the world's poor. Perhaps, but it's a very clumsy and inefficient instrument. After some 60 years of this feast, 800 million people remain permanently hungry. Full employment is a less likely prospect than it was before the frenzy began.
In a new paper published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Sir Partha Dasgupta makes the point that the problem with gross domestic product is the gross bit. There are no deductions involved: all economic activity is accounted as if it were of positive value. Social harm is added to, not subtracted from, social good. A train crash which generates £1bn worth of track repairs, medical bills and funeral costs is deemed by this measure to be as beneficial as an uninterrupted service which generates £1bn in ticket sales.
Most important, no deduction is made to account for the depreciation of natural capital: the overuse or degradation of soil, water, forests, fisheries and the atmosphere. Dasgupta shows that the total wealth of a nation can decline even as its GDP is growing. In Pakistan, for instance, his rough figures suggest that while GDP per capita grew by an average of 2.2% a year between 1970 and 2000, total wealth declined by 1.4%. Amazingly, there are still no official figures that seek to show trends in the actual wealth of nations.
You can say all this without fear of punishment or persecution. But in its practical effects, consumerism is a totalitarian system: it permeates every aspect of our lives. Even our dissent from the system is packaged up and sold to us in the form of anti-consumption consumption, like the "I'm not a plastic bag", which was supposed to replace disposable carriers but was mostly used once or twice before it fell out of fashion, or like the lucrative new books on how to live without money.
George Orwell and Aldous Huxley proposed different totalitarianisms: one sustained by fear, the other in part by greed. Huxley's nightmare has come closer to realisation. In the nurseries of the Brave New World, "the voices were adapting future demand to future industrial supply. 'I do love flying,' they whispered, 'I do love flying, I do love having new clothes … old clothes are beastly … We always throw away old clothes. Ending is better than mending, ending is better than mending'". Underconsumption was considered "positively a crime against society". But there was no need to punish it. At first the authorities machine-gunned the Simple Lifers who tried to opt out, but that didn't work. Instead they used "the slower but infinitely surer methods" of conditioning: immersing people in advertising slogans from childhood. A totalitarianism driven by greed eventually becomes self-enforced.
Let me give you an example of how far this self-enforcement has progressed. In a recent comment thread, a poster expressed an idea that I have now heard a few times. "We need to get off this tiny little world and out into the wider universe … if it takes the resources of the planet to get us out there, so be it. However we use them, however we utilise the energy of the sun and the mineral wealth of this world and the others of our planetary system, either we do use them to expand and explore other worlds, and become something greater than a mud-grubbing semi-sentient animal, or we die as a species."
This is the consumer society taken to its logical extreme: the Earth itself becomes disposable. This idea appears to be more acceptable in some circles than any restraint on pointless spending. That we might hop, like the aliens in the film Independence Day, from one planet to another, consuming their resources then moving on, is considered by these people a more realistic and desirable prospect than changing the way in which we measure wealth.
So how do we break this system? How do we pursue happiness and wellbeing rather than growth? I came back from the Copenhagen climate talks depressed for several reasons, but above all because, listening to the discussions at the citizens' summit, it struck me that we no longer have movements; we have thousands of people each clamouring to have their own visions adopted. We might come together for occasional rallies and marches, but as soon as we start discussing alternatives, solidarity is shattered by possessive individualism. Consumerism has changed all of us. Our challenge is now to fight a system we have internalised.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/....ing-consumerism
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #7 on Jan 10, 2010, 2:12am » | |
Speculation over change in role for Chinese climate negotiator
Media outlets in Hong Kong suggest He Yafei has been punished for failing to smooth relations at Copenhagen between China, the US and Europe
* Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 January 2010 17.44 GMT
A senior member of the Chinese negotiating team at Copenhagen has been shifted from his post, prompting speculation that he has been punished for the debacle of the climate talks.
He Yafei, who was at the forefront of China's blocking actions on the final fraught day of the summit, has been removed as vice foreign minister, according to a short summary of government appointments by the Xinhua news agency.
The agency gave no explanation, but the Hong Kong newspaper Sing Tao suggests He has been punished with a shift to a post at the United Nations for failing to smooth relations between China, the US and Europe, particularly as tempers flared in the last hours of the talks.
During the negotiations, He described his US counterpart as "lacking common sense", frustrated the US president, Barack Obama, at his inability to make decisions and astonished the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, by refusing to allow even rich countries to set a target to cut emissions by 2050.
In public, China has hailed the "significant and positive" outcome of the Copenhagen accord, which committed the world to keeping global warming below 2C.
Privately, however, officials are furious at the public relations disaster of the summit, which ended with Europe blaming China for sinking long-term goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Part of the problem was the vastly different expectations of the delegations. Britain and other European nations intended to bang heads together to achieve progress and to set ambitious targets during the two-week conference.
China, however, was desperate to avoid any goals that might limit its economic expansion. Having announced its first carbon target shortly before the conference, China's negotiators hoped the event would be a chance for the world to applaud the progress the country has made to improve efficiency and boost renewable energy.
The vastly different approaches led to several messy and fractious encounters, at which He Yafei was usually the fall guy.
Although the premier, Wen Jiabao, was the most senior figure in the Chinese delegation, he refused to attend most of the negotiating sessions with other leaders. This was a defensive move rather than a snub. The premier did not want to be strongarmed into a deal he could not guarantee at home.
In his place, he dispatched He, an experienced multilateral negotiator who previously served in senior posts at the United Nations and arms control talks, as well as running the North American department of the foreign ministry.
But He lacked the authority to make decisions. In huddles with world leaders, who far outranked him, all he could do was block. President Obama is said to have declared in exasperation: "It would be nice to negotiate with somebody who can make political decisions."
When he rejected a European proposal that developed nations reduce emissions by 80% by 2050, Angela Merkel described the situation as ridiculous.
The vice-minister also failed to endear himself to the chief US negotiator, Todd Stern, who suffered his undiplomatic wrath after stating that the US was not in historical debt to China because of climate change.
"I don't want to say the gentleman is ignorant," He said. "I think he lacks common sense or is extremely irresponsible."
In the angry aftermath of the conference, senior European diplomats accused China of "systematically wrecking the accord" with leaks and obstructionist tactics.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20....mate-negotiator
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #8 on Jan 13, 2010, 2:21am » | |
We need new energy governance
Globally, our systems are flawed. Better internationally agreed rules are essential for our economies and environment
* Ann Florini
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 January 2010 19.00 GMT
Energy lies at the heart of the world's most pressing global challenges. Yet at both global and national levels, energy is poorly governed. The fiasco of the Copenhagen climate summit is just one illustration of how far the world is from being able to bring about the desperately needed transition to a system of sustainable and secure provision of energy services.
The key role of energy in global problems is clear. Some two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change trace back to fossil fuel use. A renewed scramble for oil is raising fears of a new generation of geopolitical conflicts. Global economic instability correlates strongly with energy-price volatility. Economic development is in significant part defined by the process of overcoming energy poverty, yet 1.6 billion people still lack access to even the most basic energy services.
Only recently has it become clear that these seemingly disparate issues are a collective manifestation of a dysfunctional energy system. Globally and at the national level, energy is still conceptualised and managed in terms of energy sources, not in terms of the energy services these sources provide. Yet consumers have no particular interest in what sources of energy fuel their production, transportation, lighting, heating, air conditioning, or appliances. The existing paradigm serves to rigidify decision-making at a time when extraordinary flexibility and rapid change are essential.
At the global level, a host of intergovernmental organisations is tasked with addressing various pieces of the energy puzzle. Among these, the most conspicuous is the International Energy Agency (IEA). Created by oil consumers in the 1970s in response to the Opec price shocks and embargoes by Arab oil exporters, the IEA has succeeded in establishing and supervising a system of national oil stockpiles, which has helped to prevent a recurrence. With a small but highly competent professional staff, the IEA has also become the primary source for the world's energy statistics and is playing a key role in the climate debate.
But it is nowhere near the truly international organisation that its name implies. The IEA was established by and for a small number of wealthy oil-importing countries, under the aegis of the OECD. Its membership remains restricted to OECD countries, even though surging demand from non-member countries like China and India is rapidly undermining the IEA's ability to speak for, and co-ordinate responses among, oil importers as a group. Although the IEA's mandate has expanded beyond oil since the early 1990s to include broader energy policy, several of its own member governments, led by Germany, found its record on renewables so unsatisfactory that they recently established the International Renewable Energy Agency, whose membership is open to all.
Other key intergovernmental organisations face their own limits. The International Energy Forum, which grew out of a series of meetings of energy ministers, is intended to provide a common forum for fossil-fuel producers and consumers. It has taken some useful steps that may help to stabilise markets, such as the Joint Oil Data Initiative, but it plays a relatively minor role. The Energy Charter treaty has failed to bring Russia into a rule-based framework for international transit via oil and gas pipelines. The World Bank's energy financing remains overwhelmingly dedicated to fossil fuels, despite limited efforts to establish funding for low-carbon energy.
Numerous networks and partnerships have emerged in response to the gaps in global energy governance. For example, the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership, founded in the UK, has grown into a multi-stakeholder body supporting renewables and efficiency in numerous countries. So far, however, such initiatives remain quite small. They will not, in the foreseeable future, operate on a scale that can foster a rapid transition away from fossil fuels or provide energy services to billions of new consumers.
As is true of other global problems, a lot depends on the capacity and willingness of the most powerful national governments to act collectively. Yet these countries' deeply flawed systems of national energy governance will make such action all the more challenging.
Indeed, in many ways, the situation has been getting worse. Over the past two decades, advocates of privatisation have promised greater efficiencies and lower energy prices, but the failure to accompany privatisation with appropriate regulation and enforcement has left many countries with poorly governed and often deeply corrupt energy sectors.
Moreover, given the vast profits available under the current system, the struggle to bring about a significant energy transition faces stiff resistance from deeply entrenched vested interests. Market forces alone are unable to cope with major externalities such as greenhouse gas emissions, with overwhelming government control over major energy sources such as oil, and with huge numbers of people too poor to constitute a market.
Our fractured landscape for energy governance was not planned. It has evolved piecemeal, with little co-ordination among its various parts. If we are to avoid paying a high economic, strategic, and environmental price for its shortcomings, a better system of developing and enforcing internationally agreed energy rules is essential.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/....ernance-climate
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #9 on Jan 13, 2010, 2:23am » | |
Pope Benedict XVI denounces failure of world leaders at Copenhagen summit
In a speech to ambassadors, the pontiff criticises the 'economic and political resistance' to fighting environmental degradation
* Associated Press
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 January 2010 16.14 GMT
Pope Benedict XVI denounced the failure of world leaders to agree to a new climate change treaty in Copenhagen last month, saying that world peace depends on safeguarding God's creation.
He issued the admonition in a speech to ambassadors accredited to the Vatican, an annual appointment during which the pontiff reflects on issues the Vatican wants to highlight to the diplomatic corps.
Benedict has been called the "green pope" for his increasingly vocal concern about the need to protect the environment. Under his watch, the Vatican has installed solar photovoltaic cells on its main auditorium to convert sunlight into electricity and has joined a reforestation project aimed at offsetting its CO2 emissions.
In his speech, the pontiff criticised the "economic and political resistance" to fighting environmental degradation and creating a new climate treaty at last month's negotiations in Copenhagen.
The weak agreement known as the Copenhagen accord that emerged from the summit urged deeper cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming, it did nothing to demand them.
"I trust that in the course of this year ... it will be possible to reach an agreement for effectively dealing with this question," Benedict said.
He said the issue was particularly critical for island nations and in places like Africa, where the battle for resources, increased desertification and over-exploitation of land has resulted in wars.
"To cultivate peace, one must protect creation." Benedict told the ambassadors, many of whom wore their national dress or were medal-draped formal attire for the audience in the frescoed Sala Regia of the Vatican's apostolic palace.
The pontiff said the same "self-centred and materialistic" way of thinking that sparked the worldwide financial meltdown was also endangering creation. To combat it will require a new way of thinking and a new lifestyle and an acknowledgment that the question is a moral one, he said.
"The protection of creation is not principally a response to an aesthetic need, but much more to a moral need, inasmuch as nature expresses a plan of love and truth which is prior to us and which comes from God," he said.
To illustrate his point, the German-born pope pointed to the experiences of eastern Europe under the "materialistic and atheistic regimes" of the former Soviet bloc.
"Was it not easy to see the great harm which an economic system lacking any reference to the truth about man had done not only to the dignity and freedom of individuals and peoples, but to nature itself, by polluting soil, water and air?" he asked.
"The denial of God distorts the freedom of the human person, yet it also devastates creation."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/11/pope-failure-copenhagen
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #10 on Jan 19, 2010, 9:42pm » | |
When our economic interests are at stake, the war on nature resumes
All this badger cull will prove is that our relations with the natural world have scarcely altered since the dark ages
o George Monbiot
o guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 January 2010 20.00 GMT
There's a story that almost all of us believe: that beyond a certain state of development, we relearn a respect for nature. It is true that some of the excesses of the early modern age – attempts by gamekeepers to kill all competing species, mass slaughter by white hunters in the colonies, the grubbing up of hedgerows and ancient woodlands – have lessened, though we still eat endangered fish and buy timber from clear-cut rainforest. It is also true that we give more money to conservation projects and spend more time watching wildlife films than we have ever done before. But as soon as we perceive that our economic interests are threatened, our war against nature resumes.
2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity. The Welsh assembly is celebrating the occasion by launching a project to exterminate the badger. I won't pretend that this story ranks alongside the catastrophe in Haiti or the meltdown in Afghanistan, but it casts an interesting light on humanity's continuing impulse to conquer nature, and shows how, even when cloaked in the language of science, our relations with the natural world are still governed by irrationality and superstition.
Last week the Welsh rural affairs minister, Elin Jones, announced what her government calls "a proactive non-selective badger cull" in west Wales. What this means is the elimination of the species, beginning when the cubs emerge from their burrows in May. Badgers carry the bacterium which causes bovine tuberculosis. The purpose of the experiment is to discover whether the number of cows with the disease is reduced when the badger is exterminated. It it works, the method might be applied elsewhere. But even before the experiment begins, I can tell you that it's a waste of time and money.
In 2007, after nine years of research, the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB sent its final report to the UK government. It discovered that "badger culling cannot meaningfully contribute to the future control of cattle TB in Britain". Rather than suppressing the disease, killing badgers appears to spread it.
The researchers had killed badgers across 30 areas, each of 100 square kilometres. They found that when the badgers were culled in response to local outbreaks of TB, the slaughter "increased, rather than reduced" the incidence of the disease in cattle: the level of infection rose by some 20%. When badgers were killed proactively (culled annually, regardless of whether cattle were infected), the incidence of TB inside the killing zone was reduced by 23% – but the incidence outside increased by 25%. The reason is that the killing changes the behaviour of the badgers: they travel more and mix more, either to escape the slaughter or to investigate the ecological space it opens up. The economic costs of proactive culling, the study found, were 40 times greater than the benefits.
But the old reflex dies hard. As the scientific group pointed out, "agricultural and veterinary leaders continue to believe, in spite of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, that the main approach to cattle TB control must involve some form of badger population control". It noted "considerable reluctance to accept and embrace scientific findings". The Welsh government shares this reluctance. In announcing her extermination policy last week, Elin Jones claimed that the cull would be conducted according to "the requirements outlined by the Independent Scientific Group". But the ISG couldn't have made itself clearer: badger culling of any kind won't work. Instead, governments should do more to control the way that cattle are kept, tested and moved. This was a message that farmers and the Welsh government didn't want to hear.
The policy Elin Jones announced last week is even worse than this suggests. Her culling experiment is actually testing two variables: exterminating badgers and better management of cattle. Yet there are no experimental controls (study areas in which one or both methods are not being tried), so there is no means of telling which of the two measures is working, or whether changes in the incidence of the disease have anything to do with the experiment. There's a scientific term for a study that simultaneously tests two variables while using no controls: worthless. The Welsh experiment has nothing to do with science and everything to do with appeasing farmers.
The Farmers' Union of Wales has been furiously demanding that time and money should be wasted in this fashion. It has lobbied the assembly government for a scheme that will damage its members' interests and alienate the people who buy their milk and butter and cheese. It appears to be impervious to evidence or reason: last week it announced that "badger culling works. Any talk about farming practices being a significant factor are unfounded."
But even if extermination did work, the effect could be sustained only by killing any badgers that re-entered the area: in other words, rendering the species extinct there. Were the same approach to be rolled out across a wider area (the policy the experiment is designed to test), the badger would have to become extinct not only across that zone, but also in all neighbouring zones. Because badgers will move into areas from which the species has been erased, the only logical outcome of this approach is to exterminate the badger throughout the United Kingdom. As this is politically unacceptable, the Welsh experiment is pointless as well as worthless.
This exercise in wilful stupidity betrays an approach to the natural world that has scarcely altered since the dark ages. We still act as if we have been granted dominion over it. Those with an economic interest seem to regard any species that might compete or conflict with them as a threat not only to their income but also to their power. They still treat the natural world as fungible: nothing is too precious, too great a source of wonder and delight to liquidate. There appears to be no point of regret beyond which we won't venture, no lesson in ecological collapse that we are prepared to learn. The Christian worldview, which places humankind at the apex of creation, is hard to shake, even in the most secular nation on earth.
All industries strive not only towards monopoly but also towards monoculture: domination of the natural or cultural landscape. This is what George Orwell meant when he remarked that "the logical end of mechanical progress is to reduce the human being to something resembling a brain in a bottle". Industry, if left unchecked, tolerates no deviance. It seeks to shrink both the range of human experience and the wonders of the natural world until they fit into the container it has made for them.
We could lose badgers and – except for those of us who spend summer evenings watching them as they shuffle out of their setts – suffer few tangible losses. But the urge to destroy them springs from the same pathological instinct for power which would deprive us of almost everything.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/....ure-badger-cull
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #11 on Jan 19, 2010, 9:45pm » | |
Obama faces emissions U-turn with new Congress challenge
Senator Lisa Murkowski is expected to put forward a proposal that would seek to prevent federal regulation of carbon emissions
* Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 January 2010 14.30 GMT
![[image]](http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/8185/americacongestedtraffic.jpg "[image]")
Congested American roads: Climate law has stalled in the Senate. Photograph: Eddie Hironaka/Getty Images
The Obama administration faces a challenge in Congress that could strip it of its powers to cut greenhouse gas emissions, barely a month after committing to action at the Copenhagen climate change summit.
An Alaska Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski, is expected to put forward a proposal for a vote as early as tomorrow that would seek to prevent the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
A show of support for Murkowski's proposal would be a personal humiliation for Obama who told the Copenhagen summit that America was committed to action on climate change. It also threatens to remove a fall-back position if Congress fails to pass a climate change law.
Climate law has stalled in the Senate and Democratic leaders had sought to use the possibility of EPA regulation as a prod to get Senate to start moving again. Democrats admit the underlying message of Murkowski's proposed vote – that action on climate is bad – could completely kill off its chances.
"It's a highly political move, and a highly hazardous one to our health and the environment," said Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader at a conference in New York. "If this senator succeeds, it could keep Congress from working constructively in a bipartisan manner to pass clean energy legislation this year."
Thirty-seven environmental and health organisations have condemned Murkowski's effort to block the EPA. The senator has also been widely criticised for calling on energy industry lobbyists to help draft her proposals.
But Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Murkowski, argued she was trying to stop Democrats from using the stick of EPA regulation to force through flawed measures. "What this vote means is that you can't use this to blackmail Congress to pass bad legislation. The whole approach has been the administration threatening Congress that if you don't pass bad legislation, we are going to pass worse regulation," he said.
The EPA ruled in December that greenhouse gas emissions are a danger the public. The finding compels the EPA to begin curbing emissions from power plants and – though widely acknowledged as an option of last resort – was seen as an important "Plan B" should climate legislation fail in Congress.
Unlike many of her fellow Republicans – and some Democrats from midwestern states – Murkowski has tried to position herself as a potential supporter of action on climate change. Although she comes from a state whose fortunes depend on oil, she has acknowledged the effects of global warming. But she has voted against climate change bills in the past, and is opposed to the proposals that are currently in circulation.
"She supports doing something to address climate change and greenhouse gas emissions but the prerequisite is that it must not harm the economy and it must lead to substantial reductions," Dillon said. "The bill we have seen so far does none of that."
Dillon said Murkowski was still weighing her options on which measures to use to try to block the EPA. She could seek an amendment to an unrelated bill on debt due to go to a vote on 20 January, or she could introduce a resolution of disapproval, which would not be subject to a filibuster and would need only 51 votes to pass. He said Murkowski already had the support of 34 Republicans, and was reaching out to Democrats.
Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute, said other senators who support climate change law but are opposed to EPA regulation could be tempted to vote for the Murkowski proposal. "The vote on the Murkowski bill is not going to be a surrogate for a vote on climate," he said. "But it is a very serious challenge to the nation's ability to go forward if there isn't legislation."
He did not expect Murkowski's proposal to pass. Even if did pass it would still need to go through the house and leap the unlikely hurdle of being signed into law by Obama. But environmentalists fear the symbolism of a vote against action on greenhouse gas emissions would turn already wary Democrats from oil and gas states away from climate change law.
It would also send a damaging signal to the international community just as countries are trying to move ahead on fleshing out the 12-paragraph accord on global warming produced at the Copenhagen summit, said campaigners. "How can Congress contemplate sending a signal to the world that we are not serious about holding big polluters accountable under the Clean Air Act for climate pollution when other nations have finally stepped forward together to try to tackle this problem?" said Jeremy Symons of the National Wildlife Federation.
A troika of Senators – the Democrat John Kerry, Republican Lindsey Graham and Independent Joe Lieberman – are working on climate change proposals aimed at gathering broad support from Republicans as well as Democrats – in part by expanding the role of nuclear power and compromising on offshore oil and gas drilling. But the senators have yet to make public their proposal – let alone draft a bill.
The delay is causing increasing concern among supporters of climate change action, especially with the approach of congressional elections next November when the Democrats anticipate losses that could weaken their hold on Congress.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20....gress-murkowski
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #12 on Jan 19, 2010, 9:53pm » | |
Kenya at carbon crossroads, says report
Kenya's planned development path will more than double its carbon emissions unless efforts are taken to pursue low carbon development, according to an environmental think tank.
* From SciDev.net, part of the Guardian Environment Network
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 January 2010 12.15 GMT
Kenya's planned development path will more than double its carbon emissions unless efforts are taken to pursue low carbon development, according to an environmental think tank.
Yet the country has high potential for mitigating climate change because it has significant opportunities to use renewable energy, says a report released by the Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI).
Kenya emits relatively low levels of carbon because it has an electricity generation system based on renewable energy and widespread use of biomass for household energy generation, the report says.
But its Vision 2030 plan — which could see a ten per cent rise in economic growth each year and a doubled population by 2030 — would increase carbon emissions from 42 megatonnes of carbon dioxide in 2005 to 91 in 2030.
This is because the plan involves investment in infrastructure based around private car use, for example, and the introduction of coal in electricity generation which could potentially offset plans to use geothermal energy and import hydropower from other countries.
But Kenya can leverage many areas to achieve a green path to the same level of economic development, the report says.
For example, huge biomass and hydro resources could be exploited for off-grid and mini-grid generation to power the 35 per cent of households that national electrification forecasts show will be connected by the year 2020.
And biomass — which will still provide around 60 per cent of household energy requirements in 2030 — is another opportunity to reduce emissions by improving stove efficiency and expanding the use of biogas.
The government's policy – not only to preserve its forest cover but to increase large scale reforestation and afforestation drives – also puts the country in good stead, says the report.
A separate SEI analysis, in consultation with the government of Kenya, affirms that the country is planning annually to invest about US$385 million for the next 20 years to boost forest cover from the current three per cent of land to ten per cent.
But Kenya will also have to deal with the headache of a rapidly growing transport sector, expected to be a key driver of carbon, because of increasing demand for private car travel and a ballooning second hand car industry.
The report, released late last year, was funded by the UK International Department for International Development (DFID) and Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/19/kenya-carbon-crossroads
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #13 on Jan 19, 2010, 9:55pm » | |
E.ON chief: Preserve coal plants to keep lights on
* Tim Webb
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 January 2010 19.35 GMT
![[image]](http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/669/ratcliffepowerstation00.jpg "[image]")
Cooling towers of E.ON's coal fired station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar Photograph: David Sillitoe
Ageing coal-fired power stations should be exempted from environmental regulations and kept open to stop the lights from going out, the chief executive of E.ON UK has urged the government.
Paul Golby told the Guardian that some of the coal and oil-fired plants due to close this decade because of European pollution regulations should remain operational and ready to come online during periods of peak demand such as those experienced in recent weeks. The Guardian revealed this month that almost 100 large power users had to switch to alternative sources when National Grid triggered clauses in their interruptible supply contracts.
"Given that the issue we are trying to grapple with is climate change, there is a question mark over keeping one or two of these oil or coal fired plants mothballed to secure supplies for a few days per year when we get these conditions," Golby said.
"It might be a small economic and carbon premium worth paying for security of supply and getting us through this transition to a low-carbon energy system. It's something we have talked to the government about."
Golby's view is privately supported by many UK power station operators who fear a looming energy gap in a few years when old coal and nuclear plants have been closed but new reactors, clean coal plants and wind farms have not been built.
The idea puts the energy industry on a collision course with environmentalists, who are vehemently opposed to any continued use of coal in the energy mix. Coal plants emit about twice as much carbon as equivalent gas plants. E.ON became synonymous among environmentalists as a supporter of the fossil fuel after it made the first application in decades to build a new coal plant in the UK, at Kingsnorth in Kent.
A spokesman for Friends of the Earth said: "E.ON has got an agenda trying to keep as much as coal open as possible."
The pressure group said that power supply could be met by more micro-generation, such as solar panels, by energy efficiency, combined heat and power plants and more gas plants.
Jim Footner from Greenpeace added: "This is yet more evidence that E.ON wants to carry on with business as usual whatever the cost to the climate. E.ON needs to stop changing its story and get on with building the clean energy future that Britain needs."
Golby warned that as more wind farms are built, more back-up generation will be needed for when the wind does not blow, particularly during cold weather. E.ON's UK wind farms operated at only 16% capacity on average during this month's cold snap.
The E.ON UK chief said it was not economic to build new plants which would only be used occasionally but admitted that the plan would antagonise some environmentalists. "There is bound to be an environmental emotional response I guess. But if that was the only way that this quantity of wind can be built maybe it's a price that may be worth paying."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/18/eon-coal-plant-plea
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: The Propaganda Continues VI
« Reply #14 on Jan 19, 2010, 9:58pm » | |
Pants for progress: Chinese climate protesters strip off on train
* Jonathan Watts
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 January 2010 13.12 GMT
![[image]](http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/3250/activistsonanopantss001.jpg "[image]")
Activists on a 'No Pants subway ride' to promote a low-carbon lifestyle. Photograph: AP
Chinese climate campaigners are hoping that bare flesh and underwear can succeed where apocalyptic warnings and international pressure have failed: to promote a low-carbon lifestyle in the nation with the world's biggest greenhouse emissions.
A group of environmental exhibitionists – none of whom had ever met before – stripped down to their pants and boxers inside a Guangzhou subway carriage yesterday to promote awareness about sustainable consumption.
To the astonishment and amusement of watching commuters, the 20 or so men and women then sat down in their seats and continued their journeys for 40 minutes, reading newspapers and listening to music in the semi-nude.
The bare-legged subway ride was coordinated on the internet and inspired by similar actions in the UK and the US, organised by the Improv Everywhere group. Though small in scale, it is unusual in China, where climate-related campaigns are rare and the police often take a dim view of unapproved public displays of flesh or political activity.
Organisers, who posted an online appeal for participants on local bulletin boards last week, said the action was intended simply as "a bit of fun", but they were prepared to be taken away by the police.
The event, however, attracted far more attention from the media than the security bureau. The TVS1 channel filmed the participants taking off their trousers and skirts. Some, either shy or uneasy about possible repercussions wore sunglasses. Others bore hand-written slogans, "Save the Earth", "So hot" and "Low-carbon life – free and easy" either scrawled on paper or their thighs.
"Of course I feel a little bit shy, after all we are Chinese. But I think it is OK to promote environmental protection in this way," a female participant told reporters.
The organiser, Liang Shuxin – an online sales manager – said the action was deliberately provocative. "In a shocking way, we achieved our goal," he told the Guardian. "There has been a lot of debate and some people have criticised me. But this was an avant garde way to draw attention to a low-carbon lifestyle."
Environmental awareness has come late to China, but it is growing fast. Factory pollution, waste incinerators and dam relocations result in thousands of protests each year. In civil society, green NGOs have increased in number and influence.
Given the dire state of the air and water, climate change has been a more distant concern until recently. But melting glaciers and worsening droughts and floods have brought home the risks of inaction. The central government has issued its first white paper on climate change and international bodies, including the UK government, the Worldwide Fund for Nature and Greenpeace, have mounted climate campaigns in China.
But such efforts are in their infancy and the impact has to be spread over a vastly divided nation. While the average carbon footprint of people in China is half that of people in the UK, the levels in cities such as Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing are higher than Britain, France and Germany. And with China's economy still surging forward at the rate of more than 8% per year, the country's emissions will double again in the next 15 years.
Liang said he was trying to set an example by using the subway more and wearing – at least for the duration of the campaign – one less item of clothing, equal, he estimated, to 7kg of CO2 for its manufacture.
"Our government has been trying to promote a low-carbon economy, but bureaucratic action is not enough; every citizen needs to get involved."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/20....ers-pants-train
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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