Wise words from a wise man

I was over at wattsupwiththat and he drew my attention to an article first published over 60 years ago. Bertrand Russell wrote it, and you can find it here:
http://www.panarchy.org/russell/decalogue.1951.html

As someone commented, some of it can be summed up simply:
Be sure your sins will find you out.
Or as Blanchard & Peale wrote in their book "The power of ethical management":
There ain't no right way to do a wrong thing

Russell wrote:
The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:

1.
Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2.
Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3.
Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4.
When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5.
Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6.
Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8.
Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9.
Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10.
Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

The wheels are falling off the Man Made Global Warming bandwagon. Mr Gore and his cronies might wish to look at what a very wise man wrote all those years ago..

More Econonsense from Durban

I've been reading up on Carbon Dioxide- you know- that vile pollutant that is destroying our planet and must be stopped at all costs- according to the WWF and all the eco-loonies that infested Durban recently. They tell me the science is settled and that the earth is going to get warmer because of all the CO2 that is being produced by filthy humans.

This is a good link to find out about CO2.
http://www.lenntech.com/carbon-dioxide.htm

I particularly like this section:

Humans use carbon dioxide in many different ways. The most familiar example is its use in soft drinks and beer, to make them fizzy. Carbon dioxide released by baking powder or yeast makes cake batter rise.
Some fire extinguishers use carbon dioxide because it is denser than air. Carbon dioxide can blanket a fire, because of its heaviness. It prevents oxygen from getting to the fire and as a result, the burning material is deprived of the oxygen it needs to continue burning.
Carbon dioxide is also used in a technology called supercritical fluid extraction that is used to decaffeinate coffee. The solid form of carbon dioxide, commonly known as Dry Ice, is used in theatres to create stage fogs and make things like "magic potions" bubble.

I've highlighted the section that says that CO2 is heavier/denser than air. I was always told and read in books/ watched in films that people trapped in enclosed spaces need to move to the top of the space they are in- as the CO2 sinks to the floor.
OK you warmists- show us where the concentrations of CO2 low down in the atmosphere are.
You can't?
Why's that?
Oh- the CO2 is trapped high in the atmosphere you say?

Really?
That must be a different sort of CO2 to the common ordinary CO2 that makes plants grow and is so essential to human life then.

Sorry you sad apologists and snake oil salesmen and bandwagon hoppers-on. The science is settled and you are wrong. So wrong.

Stating the obvious

The BBC, arch eco-activists and pushers of global warming/climate change are at it again. Stating the bleeding obvious.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15972810

I draw your attention to the first paragraph;
"The drought that has affected parts of England since June will last into next summer if there is insufficient winter rain, the Environment Agency has said."

True. But then, the sun will definitely shine tomorrow if there are no clouds in the sky.
These days my trust in the BBC's impartiality and trustworthiness has eroded to zero. I don't trust them on climate, I don't trust them on weather, and I don't trust their wild life and nature films.
OK, they were always suspect. When Armand & Michaela Denis made their wild life films back in the 50s they used to piece together the films they had shot in order to create a story. In some ways the only honest wild life film maker was Johnny Morris, who used to put words into the mouths of zoo animals. It was tosh. He knew it, we knew it. It was not a factual programme, merely entertainment.
But then the BBC wild life unit (or whatever it's called) in Bristol got hold of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) and all pretence of factual broadcasting went out of the window. Programmes about dinosaurs are the worst.
All we know about dinosoars are a few fragments of fossils, yet there they are on the screen in full technicolour and sound. I'm all for using your imagination but these programmes are passed off as fact.....
Now dinosoars are accepted a gospel and don't anyone contradict them.
I do. I am contradicting them and their cronies at the Natural History Museum.

All we know for certain about scientific knowledge is that in time, eventually, everything we take as fact will be disproven. Anyone who disagreed with the church's belief that the earth was the centre of the universe and that everything revolved around it was a heretic. Now we know better.

One hundred and forty years ago the best scientific minds believed that space was filled with a mysterious jelly like substance called "ether". Einstein disproved that theory but was mocked for years by people who thought they knew better.Now we know better.

One day we may know more about evolution, but for now it is only a theory.

Back to the BBC's article. Some parts of the country don't get much rain. Well tell me something I didn't know. This has always been the case. 30 years ago there was talk about doing something about it. Now that successive governments have sold off the water boards who built the reservoirs we rely on, it's going to be difficult to fix. difficult but not impossible.

The rain falls in the North West, but not the South East, where the people live (mostly because it's not raining). The rainwater drains into the rivers and then to the sea. Our Victorian forefathers created a network of navigable rivers and canals that criss cross the country. It is possible to travel in a boat from the North West to the South East by canal and river. If that is the case then it is surely easy for water to be moved using the same network? A few pumps to move the water up the lock systems and a few miles of underground pipework similar to that which links Rutland and Pitsford reservoirs and the water could easily flow.

People keep claiming that the world will run out of drinkable water. Nonsense.
80% of the world's surface is covered by water. Although most of that is seawater, modern technology can easily convert saltwater into fresh.

According to Wikipaedia:
"A typical aircraft carrier in the U.S. military uses nuclear power to desalinate 400,000 US gallons (1,500,000 l; 330,000 imp gal) of water per day." A big ship with a large crew floats in sea water and converts sea water to fresh water as required. We are an island surrounded by sea. Why not convert sea water to fresh?

There are several methods of desalination, but two that spring to mind are:
Multi-stage flash distillation which accounted for 85% of production worldwide in 2004; and processes that use membranes to desalinate, by applying reverse osmosis technology.
Membrane processes use semi-permeable membranes and pressure to separate salts from water. Reverse osmosis plant membrane systems typically use less energy than thermal distillation, which has led to a reduction in overall desalination costs over the past decade. (Source- Wikipaedia- desalination)

OK so they use a lot of energy and won't solve all the world's problems, but in the UK, an island where no-one lives more than 100 miles from the sea, they could be useful. The nuclear power stations that are sited next to the sea could supply the energy, and an underground water pipeline could move the fresh water to where it can be stored and used.

I envy the Victorians and their "can-do" attitude. If they'd have had access to our technology, they'd have sorted it all out. Everything would have been built to last and not jerry-rigged as cheaply as possible. It would have worked and would have looked great as well (even the insides of the Victorian sewage works- where no-one would see them- were designed to look beautiful).

I'm convinced that there are people in power who want this country brought to its knees. Who want it to fail. Who want it destroyed. 60 or 70 years ago they would be condemned as traitors. Call me old-fashioned, but that's what they are.

Time to end the bias at the Met Office

It's been very cold in the UK in the last few weeks. Indeed it could be argued that as Winter didn't officially begin until Dec 21st, we have witnessed the coldest Autumn since records began.
And it's not just the Northern hemishere. Australia has just had snowfall during their summer!
OK, it's weather. And they keep telling me that weather is not climate.
Europeans have climate. The British have weather.

We're an island off the coast of mainland Europe that is washed by the Gulf Stream, which means our climate is generally warmer and wetter than mainland Europe. It also means that our weather is more variable than the mainland.
Being variable, it gives us British something to talk about.

So why does a few inches at most of snow cause the UK to grind to a halt, (although the BBC insists on using centimetres despite the UK official measurements being in miles, feet and inches)?
Why is it that we are as unprepared today for bad weather as we were three years ago?
Why is it that local authorities have bought less salt and grit than they did last year?
Why is it that Heathrow Airport closed because they didn't have enough snow-clearing and de-icing machinery?

Where do they get the information to base their buying requirements?

The Met Office.

Compare and contrast with London's Transport system. They've had little disruption, apart from re-routing some buses away from hillier routes.
They didn't use the Met Office predictions.

Can you see a picture emerging?

Here's a link to an interesting article
http://www.thegwpf.org/uk-news/2086-gwpf-calls-for-independent-inquiry-into-met-offices-winter-advice-.html

Here's some of the text
"The Global Warming Policy Foundation has called on the Government to set up an independent inquiry into the winter advice it received by the Met Office and the renewed failure to prepare the UK for the third severe winter in a row.
"The current winter fiasco is no longer a joke as the economic damage to the British economy as a result of the country's ill-preparedness is running at £1bn a day and could reach more than £15 billion," said Dr Benny Peiser, the GWPF's Director.
"It would appear that the Met Office provided government with rather poor if not misleading advice and we need to find out what went wrong. Lessons have to be learned well in advance of the start of next year's winter so that we are much better prepared if it is severe again," Dr Peiser said.

And here's a few of the questions the GWPF would like answered

1. Why did the Met Office publish estimates in late October showing a 60 per cent to 80 per cent chance of warmer-than-average temperatures this winter? What was the scientific basis of this probabilistic estimate?

2. Has the October prediction by the Met Office that this winter would be mild affected planning for this winter? If so, what is the best estimate of how much this has cost the country?

3. Last year, the Met Office predicted a 65% chance that winter will be milder than normal. Has the Met Office subsequently explained what went wrong with its computer modelling?

8. Although the Met Office stopped sending its 3-month forecasts to the media, it would appear that this service is still available to paying customers, the Government and Local Authorities for winter planning. What was their advice, in September/October, for the start of winter 2010?

10. Is it appropriate that the chairman of the Met Office is a member, or a former member of climate pressure groups or carbon trading groups?


And finally-

13. What plans has the government to privatise the Met Office?

Guilt and Fear

Guilt and Fear. The two main weapons used to keep the people under control.
Guilt- make people feel bad
Fear- make people afraid.

It works every time. Choose which one you want to emphasise and the ratio of one to the other and off you go.

Advertising. Mostly fear based. Prey on the consumer's fear that their washing isn't as white as it could be, their kitchen isn't as clean as it could be, that their breath may smell, or they may have body odour. Add in the guilt factor that by choosing brandX you are somehow depriving your loved ones of the very best.
No-one wants to be out of step (except me), so advertising is a great way to get people to conform.

The Environment/recycling. Guilt and fear again. You drive a car so you're a filthy polluter. It matters not that it's impossible to get anywhere and back in a day without one. You use a car. You're guilty of harming the planet.
You're made/forced to recycle your rubbish. If you don't you get fined. So you comply out of fear. It doesn't matter that your local council isn't interested in recycling commercial waste. They just dump that in landfill.
You use electricity? The power stations are polluters, so you're aiding and abetting them.
You smoke? You're an evil polluter. It doesn't matter that cigarette ends are biodegradable. They will make you feel guilty by saying that cigarette filters contain every harmful chemical known to man and therefore they're harmful to the environment. Oh Yeah? If they're so harmful why do you allow people to put them in their mouths?

Law and order. People have a wrong impression of how dangerous our streets are. The Police do nothing to change that perception. If people are safely in their homes watching TV adverts then we know where they are and they're no threat.
Terrorism is another area where the fear factor is played up. Conspiracy theorists subscribe to the idea that some attacks are "false flag", that is, carried out by our own side in order to heighten the perception of danger. The government is then able to pass laws "for our protection" that stifle our liberty, all based on a lie.

Governments rule by a mixture of guilt and fear.
Organised religion is based on a mixture of guilt and fear.
Whether it be Islam or Roman Catholicism, the adherents are kept in line through a mixture of guilt and fear. Everything we do is a sin. It's wrong. We're made to feel guily. If we step out of line we are punished, so the fear of punishment keeps the people in line. Whether it be excommunication (the Pope claims that he alone holds the keys to heaven and if he withdraws his blessing and prevents you from attending Mass (excommunication), he condemns you to purgatory)
Islam claims that anyone who kills an infidel in Allah's name will have a special place in heaven, waited on by countless virgins. It's the threat of death for apostacy and the promise of heaven for anyone who kills unbelievers that aids the spread of this religion. Guilt and Fear.

I've read the Bible from cover to cover. The first thing that Jesus said to his disciples when they saw him perform a miracle or following his resurrection was this "Do not fear".
These words are repeated throughout the Bible. Trust me. Do not fear.
To the woman caught in adultery and under sentence of death by stoning he said " go and sin no more. Your sins are forgiven." Another time he assures those listening that he has the power to forgive sin.

So why feel guilty?
And why be fearful?

Organised religion can't save you.
Government can't save you.
Buying the right product can't save you.
Wearing the latest fashion can't save you
Recycling your drinks cans can't save you.

So I won't be afraid, though I have much to fear.
And I won't feel guilty, though I have much to ask forgiveness for.

Guilt and Fear? No thanks.

No deposit, no return

Back in the mid 60s I worked in an off-licence in London's Harrow Road. My job was to keep the shelves stocked and to take care of the empties. When a customer bought a bottle of beer he was charged 3d (a nominal but significant sum, probably equivalent to 50p today)for the bottle. When he brought the bottle back, he got his money back.
It was workable and there were no bottles or cans littering our streets.

I have a confession to make. When I was about 10 or 11 my friend and I would sneak over the wall of one of the pubs in our seaside town and steal empty pop bottles and then take them to a local shop and claim the deposit. I made a few bob and put it in a Post Office savings book. Of course I got caught. The pub landlord had seen me and waited until my next visit, catching me red-handed. I don't know which was worse, being caught, being handed over to my mum who beat me and then being told to wait until my dad got home...
He was working in London and didn't get home for almost a month. I lived in dreadful anticipation of the knock on the door from the police, and my father's return. It was a big deal. Don't steal.
Fast forward a few years and Schweppes became the first company to market "no deposit, no return" bottles, followed soon after by "Long Life" the first beer brewed specially for the can.
It was the Swinging 60s, a time of innovation and sweeping away the old. Yes it had its good side, but there were a few casualties along the way. The old breweries like Fremlins, Courage Barclays & Simmonds, Trumans and countless others were taken over and merged into a few conglomerates selling identikit fizzy beer.

Watneys Red Barrel. Ugh! I still recoil at the name.

Along with the innovation that was the Party Seven we had supermarkets selling beer, and they weren't interested in bottles with a deposit, so it all came to an end.
Over the years beer and soft drinks have become cheaper and cheaper in real terms, and the aluminium can and plastic bottle have become the preferred means of delivery.
The manufacturer used to have a vested interest in getting the bottles back. Like the old fashioned doorstep milk delivery, it was cheaper to take the bottles back, wash and reuse them than to keep buying new ones. However, that idea has gone the way of the doorstop milk delivery- consigned to history.
Single use bottles and cans can be found almost anywhere on the earth's surface. They are an eyesore and a menace to the environment. You can read about the soup-like sludge of plastic that is displacing the plankton in our oceans, and threatening the ecosystem, and you can also read about initiatives to ban the use of single-use plastic shopping bags. All good and commendable. I hardly ever take a supermarket plastic bag these days.
It didn't take long to educate me.

But what about the plastic bottles and aluminium cans that litter our streets and blight the landscape?

In today's Telegraph I read that Bill Bryson, author and honorary Englishman (and President of the Council for the Protection of Rural England) has proposed a return to the "1980s bottle deposit scheme". You can read all about it here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8004306/Bill-Bryson-calls-for-1980s-bottle-deposit-scheme.html

About time too. Those of us who are old enough to remember the scheme are also old enough to remember when our streets were free from litter. However, while it's a nice idea and one that will have widespread approval, the manufacturers, distributers and retailers of these products will have something to say about it.

While I've been writing this blog I've been thinking about how a scheme like this could be made workable. Here's my suggestion, based upon my experiences.

First of all, you can't expect the retailers to take the empties back. I worked in retail for many years and it's hard enough dealing with one way traffic of goods into the stores without having empties cluttering the place up. There isn't the room, the time or the infrastructure. There has to be another way.
I'm a fan of small government so state control has to be kept to a minimum, so it has to be private enterprise. At the moment local councils collect domestic bottles and cans (but not from commercial premises). Each council negotiates their own contracts with recycling firms, which is why it's so hit and miss.
What's needed is some private enterprise (and a financial incentive from local and central government)
The government would charge a recycling levy on each bottle or can produced. The income from this would be used to buy the empties back. If someone can earn a few pence from picking up and returning an empty can to a central point (maybe one of the thousands of empty retail units that blight our towns)
The incentive is that the money is only paid on production of the empty bottle or can. Each collector can be given a swipe card where his cans are credited.
Instant job creation. Instant incentive to clean up the towns and cities.

OK loads of flaws. But's an idea.
And most of the people who claim to lead us have no idea.

Weather isn't climate, and computer models aren't reality

Earlier this week I posted about the Met Office's shiny new computer that takes as much power to run as a small town, and which predicted the non-existent volcanic ash clouds that grounded Europe's planes and caused untold delay and misery earlier this year.

The problem is that computers are only as good as the information that's fed into them. The first law of computers is GIGO:
Garbage In = Garbage Out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_In,_Garbage_Out

I learned this when working for the bank over 40 years ago.
Nothing has changed. That law is eternal.

These days little direct observational science is carried out. Data is merely fed into computers and sophisticated programming is used to predict outcomes.

In Formula One computers are used to predict the efficiency of bodywork components before they are manufactured. They are able to do this successfully because they have data going back over many years. This data was obtained by observing actual components in wind tunnels over a long period of time (relatively speaking). Human hands, eyes and brains were there from the beginning to observe and record and work out the scientific principles involved.
That is good science.
Likewise, ship builders use computer programmes to design ship hulls. They obtained the data to build the computer programme from direct observation and measurement of the behaviour of actual model hulls in a water filled tank. This is also good science.
So far so good. In both the cases the principle of GIGO was taken into account. The data was obtained by direct observation, measured by trusted and trained individuals,and a computer programme was written that simulated the effects of those observations. At all times accuracy was uppermost. The data had to be 100% trustworthy.

Now we come to environmental science, notably weather forecasting and climate predicting.
In the case of the non-existent ash clouds, NO DIRECT OBSERVATIONS WERE MADE.
The aircraft that could have flown into and around the clouds to measure the extent of the problem was grounded, under repair.
The only data they had was guesswork.
Remember the first law of computers?
That's right- Garbage In = Garbage Out.

When will these people learn that computers are only as good as the data that's fed into them?

Now I come to my second and more important gripe- Global Warming or Climate Change.

Firstly- I do not dispute that Climate Change is occurring. It's always occuring. It always has and it always will.
Historians and archaeologists show us that Britain was much warmer a couple of thousand years ago. Sea levels were much higher then. Go back a few thousand years and Britain was joined to Europe. The North Sea was a large land mass that archaeologists have dubbed Doggerland. Fisherman often dredge up stone age artifacts from the sea bed. Climate changes and sea levels change.

The worrying new development is a whole new brand of "science" has emerged that claims to be able to predict the future based on the past and using only computer models. This is an alarming trend that cannot be allowed to happen unquestioned.

We all know what happens when computers are allowed to predict the future without accurate data. They get it wrong. 100% of the time.
Remember GIGO?

Over at Wattsupwiththat, Anthony reports on the latest climate model that NCAR has rolled out. You can read about it here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/19/ncars-new-2010-climate-model-for-the-next-ipcc-report/

The Press Release says this:
"The CESM is one of about a dozen climate models worldwide that can be used to simulate the many components of Earth’s climate system, including the oceans, atmosphere, sea ice, and land cover. The CESM and its predecessors are unique among these models in that they were developed by a broad community of scientists. The model is freely available to researchers worldwide."

First and foremost it must be stressed that this is a computer model. And the results are but a simulation of what may happen. Using the first principles of computing, namely GIGO, we have to be convinced that the data being used is 100% accurate, uncorrupted, unmanipulated and trustworthy.
Following the "Climategate" scandal of 2009, when scientists at the University of East Anglia admitted to "adjusting" the data, we cannot be sure that any outcome predicted by the computer can be in any way trusted.

Unfortunatley, to air that legitimate view is to be called a "denier". But consider this, is it not the same to argue that anyone who accepts conclusions derived from dodgy data also a denier?
Remember the first law of computing
GARBAGE IN= GARBAGE OUT.

Not so green

Install solar panels, and save the planet! Well, not so fast. Solar cells are high-tech electronic products that contain hazardous materials.
Read more here
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/green-solar-cells-new-love-canal/

Going to Mother Jones site we read more-
"How toxic are your solar panels? The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), a group that has done more than any other to clean up the electronics industry, attempted to answer that question today with the release of its Solar Scorecard. It didn't get very far. Of the 25 solar manufacturers that SVTC contacted, only 14, which together represent just 24 percent of the solar market, even responded. And their answers weren't always heartening. Among SVTC's findings:

* Six companies report that their products contain lead, a potent neurotoxin.
* Three companies report that their products contain cadmium, a known carcinogen.
* One company uses nitrogen triflouride, a potent greenhouse gas
* Only seven companies provide recycling free of charge
* Only eight companies said their would support "extended producer responsibility" laws that would require them to take back or recycle their products"

So they're pretty pollutant. So why install them?
Could it be that they attract a government subsidy?
read here-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-1263712/Green-living-hot-new-investment-Tariffs-solar-panels-pay-cent-year--taxpayers-expense.html
"Until last week, there was very little reason to stick expensive electricity-producing solar panels on your roof unless you passionately believed in joining the crusade against global warming.
Now, however, there is a strong financial case to do so.
The Government has introduced new 'feed-in tariffs' for clean electricity, which means that a £12,500 investment in solar energy producing panels will pay a tax-free return of six to eight per cent per annum. That is more than double the best High Street savings accounts."

So, not only are they polluting, the poor taxpayer pays a dividend to anyone installing them. Another green fiasco that ranks with mercury filled energy saving lightbulbs that don't give off enough light to read by, and which can be dangerous to anyone who suffers from fits.

And all to make someone feel better?

The importance of being important

Alan Yentob is all over the Grauniad defending why he has to travel business class. He says he wouldnt be able to do his job if he had to travel with the ordinary folk in steerage.
You can read about it here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/28/bbc-alan-yentob-job-business-class

Why is he flying at all? The BBC are so committed to Global Warming/Climate Change that they take every available opportunity to tell us how bad CO2 and air travel is for the planet.
But that is only for the sheeple. Important people like Alan Botney (he should spell his name backwards so that it sound more like a man of the people)have to travel by air because they are important.

Its the USSR all over again. Peasants with carts on rutted roads while the important people have whole lanes of the motorways for the own personal use.

Important people are important because they are important. Its important you know that.

Why AGW is the new religion

I've been posting on other forums recently and one topic led to a discussion where I drew comparisons between the modern day religion of global warming/climate change and the pre-reformation Catholic Church.
Both were intolerant of dissent, although AGW heretics haven't been burnt at the stake- yet. They have however been denied funding and patronage in the same way as early scientists who refused to believe the church's official stance that the sun and stars revolved around the earth, which was at the centre of the universe. Any dissent from this official view meant imprisonment.
Wikipedia states that "Galileo's championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime, when a large majority of philosophers and astronomers still subscribed (at least outwardly) to the geocentric view that the Earth is at the centre of the universe. After 1610, when he began publicly supporting the heliocentric view, which placed the Sun at the centre of the universe, he met with bitter opposition from some philosophers and clerics, and two of the latter eventually denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615. In February 1616, although he had been cleared of any offence, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as "false and contrary to Scripture", and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it—which he promised to do. When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy," forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest."
Nowadays the only way one can get science funding is if you accept global warming as a fact. Being a sceptic means no career.

So the first similarity between AGW and pre-reformation Christianity is to do with partonage and heresy.

The second similarity is to do with money.
Indulgences were a pardon for certain types of sin that was sold by the Catholic Church in the late medieval period. The sale of indulgences motivated Martin Luther to post the "95 Theses, which led to the Reformation.
These days they're called carbon credits. Carbon transactions is a booming market, worth $126 billion last year alone. The eureferendum.blogspot site says this "The larger part of the market actually comprises the EU's mandatory Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) – and other very much smaller allowance schemes - accounting for 73 percent of trading volume in 2008.
This mechanism was formally created in 1997 by the Kyoto climate treaty and started operating in a very small way in 1998 building to 78 million "credits" (or Certified Emission Reductions, CERs, as they are formally known) to 333 million this year with a projection of 1.7 billion by the end of 2012."

Both the Christian faith and Climate Science started out as honest institutions that were gradually infiltrated and corrupted by the power hungry and greedy.
The Christian church underwent a painful and bloody reformation that resulted in many dead saints.

Science has been devalued and dragged through the mud by the corruption. Nothing less than a revolution will clean it up and put it back on track.

Ash & dust

Heres the map showing extent of the ash/dust cloud from the Icelandic volcano as of yesterday. The area marked in red is the no-fly zone.

Spot the difference? Last week they shut down the European airspace based upon a computer model, without any testing or sampling of the atmosphere.

So the actual risk area is revealed to be tiny, and once again weve been dumped on by numpties who spend all day looking at computers instead of measuring the real world.When they actually sent planes up there to measure how much dust and ash there is, the risk was downgraded and the world was allowed to get back to normal.

Im puzzled by all this. One, planes fly through dust and sand every day without harm. So why was this dust cloud considered so dangerous?
Two, it seems that those who rule us take great delight in keeping us guilty and scared. They manipulate data to try and scare us into believing that the world is going to end in a fireball, or that polar bears are going to swim down my street because the ice caps have melted. Next they scare us into panic over a flu virus that ended up killing fewer people that the ordinary kind.

There is a motive behind it. The only weapons they have to control us are guilt and fear. Its always been this way. For centuries we were ruled by kings who had armies and the church to administer the fear and guilt.
Now we are ruled by......
Whoever they are, their weapons are still the same.

Google censors parodies

Wattsupwiththat are reporting that Google are censoring a video that parodies Michael Mann and his "hide the decline" stance.

Apparently Google are taking down all the Hitler parodies as well. This is what Adolf had to say when he found out.

Fuss about nothing?

The airlines have revolted and are flying planes into UK airspace, forcing the airports to open.
Millions have had their travel plans disrupted and the MotoGP race due to take place this weekend has been cancelled.
So what is actually going on?

The Register is reporting this-

"So the UK Met Office closed European civilian airspace on the basis of one computer model, which it didn't check against reality. We already knew that the great volcano shut-down was based on a model, but we didn't know how little atmospheric sampling was performed to test the simulation against the atmosphere. It turns out only four test flights have been made to sample the composition of the cloud.
Matthias Ruete, the European Commission's transport chief, accused the Mystic Met of preferring virtual reality to evidence. "We have a model that runs on mathematical projections. It is probability rather than things happening," he said.
As a result the Met Office continued to issue projections of where it thought the ash cloud should be, but was unable to report its density and composition with confidence. These are critical vital factors an airline needs to know. European airlines sounded the alarm on Sunday, when they noticed that the satellite pictures didn't tally with the centre's output."

You can read the rest of the article here-
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/20/mystic_met_volcano_model/

So what is going on? I assume that the insurers hold the key. Everybody fears being sued and nobody is willing to put their jobs on the line.

Im a big fan of Ayn Rands "Atlas Shrugged". In her book the action revolves around a transcontinental railway as airlines hadn't taken hold in the US when she wrote it.
However, the parallels are uncanny.

Then there is the governments response. What response I hear  you say? Exactly.

A TV presenter named Dan Snow took three inflatable boats to Calais to collect some friends. The French authorities wouldnt let him take them for hours. In the end he was able to bring some Brits home, but not his friends.
The media picked up on this and the government was stung into action.

I can imagine the conversation-
PM- We must do something!
Flunky- That bloke off the TV has taken some boats to Calais in a rerun of Dunkirk. He s getting all the media attention.
PM- Media attention? We must do something about that. Theres an election going on.
Flunky- Why not a rerun of Dunkirk? You know, send a warship or two over to collect our people?
PM- We must do something. Were losing in the polls!
Flunky- This is something.
PM- Let's do it! Erm, do we have any ships left?

Its a fiasco of the worst kind. Knee jerk politics. Media hype and scaremongering.

Ayn Rand was right all along.

Lies, damn lies and statistics

Here are a couple of graphics from the excellent Wattsupwiththat site
They both use exactly the same data. Exactly the same.

And this

One graphic has been designed to give the impression that we're all doomed. can you tell which one it is?
Read more here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/13/lies-damned-lies-statistics-and-graphs/#more-18419

Greenpeace is neither green nor peaceful

I was encouraged to have a look at this post on the greenpeace website. It's here-
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/climate/2010/04/will_the_real_climategate_plea_1.html

Greenpeace? Aren't they the vandals who commit piracy on the high seas? Aren't they the political lobbyists who want to return the world to pre-industrial times?
Yes on both counts. Here's some passages from their website. I encourage you to read it for yourself.

"What do you do when patient petitioning, protest marches and court orders fail? What do you do when all the protocols and cheat codes of democracy fail? This is what you do: you reclaim the language of democracy from the twisted bunch that have hijacked, cannibalized and subverted it."

Ok, so how do you intend to do this?


"We need to hit them where it hurts most, by any means necessary: through the power of our votes, our taxes, our wallets, and more.
We need to be inclusive. We need to join forces with those within the climate movement that are taking direct action to disrupt the CO2 supply chain. We need to embrace the conservatives too, the ones that choose scientific rigour and court injunctions as their weapons."

So what do you mean by direct action?
If you hit the link to Beyondtalk you will read

"But time is far too short to shut down one site at a time. Massive action is needed today, in order to: 

ensure climate justice for the affected communities around the world that contribute the least to the problem, but are already feeling the effects 

Implement a real deal that does not rely on carbon trading, offsets, or other false solutions 

Keep all fossil fuels in the ground, and drastically reduce emissions 

End subsidies to climate polluters including oil and gas, coal, industrial bio-fuels, nuclear power, etc. 

End mountaintop removal and industrial logging of primary forests immediately 

Invest in local union jobs driven by purpose, not profit, and protect our community health"

Lunacy. utter lunacy. And it goes on-

"The politicians have failed. Now it's up to us. We must break the law to make the laws we need: laws that are supposed to protect society, and protect our future. Until our laws do that, screw being climate lobbyists. Screw being climate activists. It's not working. We need an army of climate outlaws."

And to reinforce their stance- 

"If you're one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:
We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work."

All my dealings with warmists and greenists have shown one consistency in their attitude.They're always rude and intolerant of anything other than the party line. They're mad, bad and dangerous.  Their foot soldiers have been brainwashed into pushing for a pre-industrial world where life expectancy will plummet and only the very rich and their bosses will be able to travel anywhere. At the very heart they're not green, and they're not peaceful.



H/T to Devil's Kitchen

UPDATE- Greenpeace have removed the offending post, but you can still read it here-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/06/damage-control-greenpeace-removes-threats/

Off to buy some whitewash

The report into the leaked emails has been published and the verdict is as expected- a total whitewash.
I despair.
Read Antony Watts post here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/30/results-of-the-climategate-paliamentary-inquiry-in-the-uk/#more-17952
Here's the press release

"Phil Willis MP, Committee Chair, said:
“Climate science is a matter of global importance. On the basis of the science, governments across the world will be spending trillions of pounds on climate change mitigation. The quality of the science therefore has to be irreproachable. What this inquiry revealed was that climate scientists need to take steps to make available all the data that support their work and full methodological workings, including their computer codes. Had both been available, many of the problems at CRU could have been avoided.”
The focus on Professor Jones and CRU has been largely misplaced. On the accusations relating to Professor Jones’s refusal to share raw data and computer codes, the Committee considers that his actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community but that those practices need to change.
On the much cited phrases in the leaked e-mails-”trick” and “hiding the decline”-the Committee considers that they were colloquial terms used in private e-mails and the balance of evidence is that they were not part of a systematic attempt to mislead.
Insofar as the Committee was able to consider accusations of dishonesty against CRU, the Committee considers that there is no case to answer.
The Committee found no reason in this inquiry to challenge the scientific consensus as expressed by Professor Beddington, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, that “global warming is happening [and] that it is induced by human activity”. But this was not an inquiry into the science produced by CRU and it will be for the Scientific Appraisal Panel, announced by the University on 22 March, to determine whether the work of CRU has been soundly built.
On the mishandling of Freedom of Information (FoI) requests, the Committee considers that much of the responsibility should lie with the University, not CRU. The leaked e-mails appear to show a culture of non-disclosure at CRU and instances where information may have been deleted to avoid disclosure, particularly to climate change sceptics. The failure of the University to grasp fully the potential damage this could do and did was regrettable. The University needs to re-assess how it can support academics whose expertise in FoI requests is limited."


Nothing to see here. Move along please.


But wait a minute. This is our money they're spending. And they're going to tax us into the stone ages if they get their way.


You can't build the truth using a lie for foundations.
And there ain't no right way to do a wrong thing.
Who gains from all this? Follow the money.

I will continue to ignore everything the government and global warming scientists publish because unless they can convince me that their motives are good, the science is clear and unambiguous and has been subject to rigorous scrutiny by both sides of the argument, and when the sponsors of this new religion practise what they preach, as far as I'm concerned it's just hot air and spin.

Combatting scepticism by shouting loudly

Biased-BBC pointed me to an interesting article on this site
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/03/combating-the-growing-influence-of-climate-sceptics/




Now I'm an AGW sceptic. As far as I can see, global warming or climate change is all about money. There's money to be had by trading on people's fears and taxing them as punishment.
When the "climategate" story broke, it revealed to the world that the figures quoted by all the "authorities" were in fact made up. The antics of the warmists and their refusal to countenance any deviation from the party line, followed by calling us "denialists" only made me more convinced of the shakiness of their argument. The science is not settled, and when one party in a debate has to resort to name calling, then he has lost the debate, full stop.


The BBC and the Met Office are central to their cause. This was highlighted in a recent report commissioned by fake charity and political lobby group Oxfam . My eye was drawn to this line on the Leftfootforward site, which sums them up -
"Oh, and remember to check out James Delingpole’s column at the Telegraph. If any of it makes you angry, you might like to let him know. Did I say be polite? Scratch that."

So, more encouragement to be rude towards sceptics. You don't win arguments by shouting louder than everyone else.
Here's a handy little diagram that accompanies the article.

Click on it to enlarge it.

The truth about rubbish

The Daily Mail is running an article about the possibility of households being fined up to £1000 for putting the wrong rubbish in their bins. Of course, this is the Daily Mail and they've never knowingly underhyped a story, but it's worth investigating a bit. The story is here

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1258755/Families-face-fine-using-wrong-bin-household-waste-crackdown.html


There is a simple way to counter this of course and that's to make sure that you leave no identifying items in your bin and just empty the bin in the street and phone the fly-tipping hot line and ask the council to come and pick it up. Not that I'm suggesting any such thing of course.
Local councils must be made to understand that they are the servants of the people and not the other way around. We pay a lot of money in council tax and we expect a good service. The knee jerk reaction of local authorities when their ivory tower existence is threatened is to pull the "washington monument" trick. Cut front line services while keeping their won overpaid and overbloated existence unchanged.

I note that this rule only applies to household waste. In my day job as office manager of a solicitor's firm I have to deal with the disposal of the waste that we generate. In our town we buy blue rubbish bags from the council. They are currently about £1.50 each. Being a good citizen and mindful of the need to avoid putting recyclable items into landfill, I asked if the council would take our cardboard and paper separately.
The answer amazed me. No they wouldn't. They have no facility for separating trade waste. They had no plans to instigate separate collections or even provide a collection point for my cardboard and old newspapers. They weren't interested. So, we have a double standard in the heart of local council's recycling policy. If you're a household, you separate everything, if you're a business you can't. Not "don't have to" but "can't". That's crazy.
I refuse to pay the council to take away paper and cardboard that could easily be recycled. The council will quite happily fill up its landfill sites with trade waste , whilst fleecing the householder and wringing its hands and making us all feel guilty about some european directive or other.
Admittedly we are a small firm and we can easily recycle within the office.Our confidential waste has to be securely disposed of, but old envelopes and newspapers and spam faxes about lease cars and drinks machines can be boxed up and taken to the local public tip every month or so. we recycle our cardboard and cans through our houselhold collections and we've cut our trade waste to one bag per week.
Recycling and recycling policy- it's all rubbish, designed to extract more cash so that the council fatcats can get their gold plated pensions.
Local government officials used to be called public servants. When did that change? As far as I'm concerned it never has.

Wind farm contract cancelled

At last, some sense regarding wind farms. They are an expensive eyesore and are bad for your health and for the local wildlife. They only work if the wind is blowing and won't work at all if the wind is too strong. You still have to have a backup in the form of coal fired or nuclear power stations.

Denmark is held up to be the shining example of renewable energy. It's a myth. Most of the time they have to buy electricity from neighbouring countries. Any electricity that is produced is way too expensive. Renewable energy is just another scam, and only exists in order to claim the generous subsidies on offer.
One of the comments on Wattsupwiththat-
"Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).
Flemming Nissen, the head of development at West Danish generating company ELSAM (one of Denmark’s largest energy utilities) tells us that “wind turbines do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions.” The German experience is no different. Der Spiegel reports that “Germany’s CO2 emissions haven’t been reduced by even a single gram,” and additional coal- and gas-fired plants have been constructed to ensure reliable delivery… "

Someone wrote that green energy is not green if it requires a subsidy. Amen to that.

So here's the news from the US
"In a statement made last Friday by EDF Energies Nouvelles (French Green Power Company), a power purchase agreement was terminated without explanation by Indianapolis Power and Light Company regarding the supply of wind energy by enXco, a local EDF company. The contract was unilaterally terminated by IPL, and more than 10 days later, EDF has acknowledged it to the market."

Somebody woke up to the fact that as well as erecting scores of unsightly turbines, they'd also have to build a new back up generating facility. So why have the windfarm at all?

Every week we hear of more plans to desecrate our countryside with windfarms. This part of the UK is not known for being windy- far from it. So why do they persist? It couldn't be for the subsidies on offer could it?
Full story here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/15/indianapolis-wind-power-contract-canceled/

Stop spending our money promoting mythology!!!!

The Register and the Grauniad are both running stories about the government's "drowning dog" tv advert that was broadcast in December and January.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/24/ofcom_drowning_dog_probe/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/feb/24/ofcom-climate-change-bedtime-stories

I saw it and almost threw something at the TV. Here's the offending advert. (Caution- liable to induce stress related vomiting)



It seems that Ofcom are to investigate claims that the advert is blatant political advertisng, while the Advertising Standards Association (ASA) have received about 1000 complaints that it breached advertising standards. Too right it did.

The truth is out on AGW. It's a money making scam involving carbon trading credits.
Read this story for the full sick making extent
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/12/protecting-big-carbon.html

The advert cost £6m of our money and the news comes hard on the heels of the announcement that the department that produced this rubbish spent £600k of our money on Google adwords last year.

As a postscript to the Carbon Trading scam. On the day that the BBC made Tiger Wood's fake confession its no1 news item, Corus closed its Redcar steelworks.
Corus is owned by Tata.
This article may help explain why they closed it.
http://www.matador94.nl/global-climate-related/u-n-climate-chief-pachauri-cashes-in-on-tata-owned-corus-carbon-credits

" Mumbai-based Indian multinational conglomerate with business ties to Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman since 2002 of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, stands to make several hundred million dollars in European Union carbon credits simply by closing a steel production facility in Britain with the loss of 1,700 jobs.
The Tata Group headquartered in Mumbai anticipates receiving windfall profits of up to nearly $2 billion from closing the Corus Redcar steelmaking plant in Britain, with about half of the savings expected to result from cashing in on carbon credits granted the steelmaker by the European Union under the EU’s emissions trading scheme, or ETS."

Here's the link between Tata and Pachauri
"In 1974, the TATA Group provided the financial resources to found the Tata Energy Research Institute, or TERI, a policy organization headquartered in New Dehli, India, of which Pachauri has been chairman since the group was formed."

No wonder they chose to bury the news.