Many of you have probably heard by now of the UN. Report saying that “global warming is killing 300,000 people a year”. There’s a Times Online Story (h/t to Gary Boden) about it today that has some startling admissions. Here are some excerpts:
Climate change is already killing 300,000 people a year in a “silent crisis” that is seriously affecting hundreds of millions more, an influential humanitarian group warned today.
A report by the Global Humanitarian Forum, led by Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, says that the effects of climate change are growing in such a way that it will have a serious impact on 600 million people, almost ten per cent of the world’s population, within 20 years. Almost all of these will be in developing countries.
“Climate change is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time, causing suffering to hundreds of millions of people worldwide,” Mr Annan said.
“As this report shows, the first hit and worst affected are the world’s poorest groups, and yet they have done least to cause the problem.”
//
The report claims that 90 per cent of the deaths are related to gradual environmental degradation caused by a warming climate, which exacerbates existing threats — mainly malnutrition, diarrhoea and malaria. The rest are said to be the result of weather disasters.
But here is the kicker (emphasis mine):
Mr Annan said the report could never be as rigorous as a scientific study, but said: “We feel it is the most plausible account of the current impact of climate change today.”
Translation: “close enough for government work” (click for definition)
Worse, the U.N. didn’t even do the report themselves. The farmed it out:
The research was carried out by Dalberg Global Advisers, a consultancy firm, who collated all existing statistics on the human impacts of climate change. The report acknowledges a “significant margin of error” in its estimates.
But it is good enough for the MSM to use to scare the crap out of everybody and guilt the gullible into “action”.
‘Bogus’, doesn’t even begin to describe this political ploy.
For a real report, using real data, reflecting the real world situation, please read these reports by WUWT contributor Indur Goklany:
Going Down: Death Rates Due to Extreme Weather Events
How the IPCC Portrayed a Net Positive Impact of Climate Change as a Negative
Wrong: World Health Organization claims that health goes down as carbon goes up
Compare to “competitive” and “economically viable.” “Profitable.” “Efficient.”
My first response to the claim in the title was to demand the name of just one person who has died from man-made global warming. Of course, that can not be done, unless someone has died traveling to the exotic locations they hold those global warming conferences.
This ‘study’ is beyond stupid, yet it is the lead story on the AOL website, too!
I have yet to see any of Indur Goklany’s papers in any of the mainstream media, yet they are much more scientific! The Earth is doing fine. We humans are nuts!
I believe that is the report that Roger Pielke Jr called a “A Methodological Embarassment” in the title to his post at Prometheus:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/a-methodological-embarassment-5314
Per Bob’s link, Pielke critiques:
Anan’s a kleptocrat. Far easier to blame “the AGW caused by the evil Americans” than the socialist/marxist “kings” of Africa who live in luxury, pilfer state tresuries, steal once productive farm land for their cronies who know zilch about farming, and who leave their populations to starve while chastizing us for not giving them more to steal.
Hey, I guess this means Kofi shouldn’t have arranged those oil licenses for Iraq back in the day! [/snark]
Want to combat Malaria? Use something to kill the mosquitoes. Prior to Silent Spring, we used DDT, and malaria was decreasing world wide. It is pretty much eradicated in the U. S. even now, but the rest of the world didn’t get to use it as thoroughly as it was used here. The Anopheles mosquito is pretty much gone from North America, except, oddly enough, in Alaska and northern parts of Canada. They still get a few malaria cases each year. Malaria is not a result of global warming; it is a result of mosquitoes carrying the virus from an infected host to another person. Mosquitoes inhabit environments as far different as the Amazon and Congo Basins to Antarctica and Siberia. They just need stagnant water in which the eggs can hatch and the larvae mature.
Malnutrition is due people not getting the diet they need. Currently, this is more connected to the poverty conditions in countries than to the temperature. Strike Two!
Diarrhea. They seriously said diarrhea was caused by global warming. Diarrhea is due to a fluid imbalance in your intestines. This can be caused by many things. This is just a short list – food borne pathogens (food poisoning), malnutrition, food allergies, radiation exposure, dysentery. Trust me, there are many more, and most of these are due to poverty conditions rather than the planet warming.
Strike three and you are out of here, Kofi!
Here in NZ a news item on TV two nights ago had prominent climate scientists from our Gov. NIWA and Met. Service telling us that painting our roofs white will help combat imminent catastrophic global warming. Confused experts? The very next TV item had our Met. Service (unfortunately not the same employees) warning us of an unseasonal and bitterly cold weather system that will give us snow right down to sea level. Maybe the MSM are developing a sense of humour. And yup our Met Service got the weather forecast right.
Aren’t Kofi Annan and his friends busy selling food in exchange for oil money to some dictator somewhere in the world? That’s what they spent so much of their time doing in the past, just like George Monbiot’s friend George Galloway was doing in Iraq.
From Dalberg Global Advisers
Situation:
A leading international agency (who could that be?? was looking for innovative, non-traditional ways to address environmental and social issues in developing countries.
The organization sought Dahlberg’s counsel on engaging private sector partners and resources to combat global warming.
Dahlberg Approach:
After analysing several options, Dahlberg recommended a long-term partnership with a leading global financial firm whose business was affected by the same issues that the public sector client was seeking to address – climate change and biodiversity loss. Dahlberg worked with the client to close the partnership, develop the concept and business plan, raise startup funds, identity potential partners and lauch the program.
Results:
Our client and it’s partner launched a new program to enable companies and consumers to take greater responsibility for their impact on the environment through C02 emission off-set programs.
So, is the US now a partner of the UN??
Does Kofi Annan now run the Treasury Dept. or lobby Congress?
And Kofi, in further clarifications, explained that ‘it is clearly a Zionist plot’.
Seriously- AGW propaganda has become as predictable and boring as
I apologize for this being off topic to this thread – couldn’t find the appropriate e-mail address. Moderator, please delete this post, but do look at this link – I think it is very eye-opening and would be well worth a thread of it’s own.
Lawrence Solomon: Who came up with the idea for a CO2 cap and trade system originally? Why Enron, of course. No wonder it was designed to be nothing but a massive money transfer scam from the top.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/05/30/lawrence-solomon-enron-s-other-secret.aspx
“which exacerbates existing threats — mainly malnutrition, ”
Yeah right. Turning foodcrops into ethanol for driving also exacerbates malnutrition. Using fertile land for growing biofuels als exacerbates malnutrition.
Thank you very much Greenpeace, thank you Mr. Gore for introducing biofuels as an answer to
peakoilthe climate crisis.Most of the commentary on this article misses a more important point. Probably the most prominent program for mitigating greenhouse gasses in the US is to convert food crops, corn and soy beans, into biofuels. Last year when the price of grains skyrocketed because of shortages, the money allocated to programs to alleviate famine throughout the world only went about half as far as it could have without biofuel inflated prices. Oxfam estimated that 30 million more people starved as a result. If only 1% of this group starved as a result of the diversion of food to fuel, that’s 300,000 people. I suspect the toll is greater. In other words, you can make a much more plausible case for climate mitigation stratagies resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. With a little bit of digging, I would be you could even get stats that could withstand review by Dr. Pielke.
Pielke jr had already criticized it here:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/a-methodological-embarassment-5314
Ouch!
hunter (13:57:53) :
Did you read the YouTube comments?
Hilarious
DaveE.
300,000 people is unfortunate but a small number in consideration that millions die every year caused by ill-conceived environmental politics.
Talk about a contradiction in terms: government work.
Governments don’t work, they take. The smaller they are, the less they take, the more is left for working people to use. And I’ll leave it at that before I let loose with a frothing at the mouth diatribe.
What a crock!
Why do people like Annan, Gobachev and the Profit,Algore, get to head these organizations, or do they start them to fund their copious retirements?
I think I know…
“I have yet to see any of Indur Goklany’s papers in any of the mainstream media, yet they are much more scientific!”
You folks keep wanting to see “truth” in the media. It’s just not going to happen. This is not a “factual” debate. This is money, plain and simple. They can hide behind whatever headline they wish. 90% of the population that can read it’s up each and every dire headline in the 15 seconds of attention they commonly allocate to any given piece of information, and they move on.
This is fighting a hydra that can grow 10 new heads as quickly and as easily as 1 can be chopped off.
This battle isn’t about truth and facts. It’s about money. And when we finally reach the tipping point where enough people are looking at their paycheck and saying “Hey…WAIT A MINUTE…”, it’s just going to keep on rolling.
JimB
It wouldn’t be hard to do a rough calculation of the number of lives saved by global warming. The increase in crop growth as a function of CO2 is well known. The longer growing season in some areas has even been implied by some of the alarmist lit. Together, they provide a lot of agricultural increase — which could be estimated. That could be translated into people not starving, simply by dividing by the amount of food that it takes to feed one person. This would be a MUCH more accurate number than their 300k guess. I’ll bet it’s bigger number too.
Here in Kansas we’re having our first 90 degree days of the year, before anyone asks they usually come around this time of the year and in 4 days a dip into the 70’s.
As far as I read extreme cold will kill more people than extreme heat as seen in previous cold periods
How much of the increasing amount of insect-borne disease cases is due to a rising population or rising rainfall amounts increasing the amount of standing water for mosquitos?
So mr. Anan, no answer me this then, 300.000 deaths due to AGW, that’s about 800 to 850 each day, now how about those other 40.000 to 50.000 each day that die because they lack sufficient medical care, food and above all water? Could you also answer me why it is that of those 40.000 to 50.000 most of them are in the age up to 5 years old? Yep that’s right, kids.
Even when there is a A in GW, then it is still a luxury problem.
Christian Bultmann (14:30:00) :
300,000 people is unfortunate but a small number in consideration that millions die every year caused by ill-conceived environmental politics.
—
Regrettably, there is NO connection between ANY symptom of actual global warming (today’s 1/4 of one degree rise since 1970) and ANY excessive deaths.
(Higher deaths from higher temperatures (in summer, even if 1/4 of one degree can actually be tracked into a heat wave death incident) are more than offset by reduced deaths in winter due to higher (average) winter temperatures.
More CO2? 12% to 27% MORE plant growth, more food, fuel, fodder, fuel, and feasts.
More growing season? Fewer deaths.
More area available to plant? Fewer deaths.
Sea level rise? Not measureable. Can’t kill someone from a 2 mm rise!
Droughts? No, not from global warming.
Tornadoes? No. Fewer tornadoes recently. Fewer hurricanes also. Real world = Less storms recently. Fewer actual deaths.
…
Now, I will grant that KOFI murdered 300,000 people through HIS starvation and DDT-restrictions and conversion of fuel and food into ethanol and higher taxes and higher oil charges and higher food prices and economic losses CAUSED by HIS (and the democrat’s) fears of AGW …..
Back in the 60´s the mosquito transmitting malaria and dengue was erradicated from Peru, South America, thanks to DDT, until…:
Malaria, which could have been conquered 20 years ago, is still the single most important tropical disease and a major obstacle to the economic and social development of vast areas of the world. Before the discovery of the pesticide DDT in the early 1940s, there were at least 300 million cases in the world annually, and more than 3 million of those who were stricken died each year. Thanks to the pesticide DI3T, millions of lives were saved from malaria’s grip in the years immediately following World War II. There was hope that DDT would bring an end to this mass killer, once and for all.
But it did not happen, because of an irrational campaign of fear against pesticides, launched in the United States by Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring
http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Ingles/Killer.html
Íf I say what I think of that UN bureaucrat…my post would be snipped, so you must interpret my thoughts…&%#&
Nice example of government work in the photo! Seems the same level of care was taken with this report-nicely stated.
Mr.Kofi (Coffee?, I beg your pardon) Annan: Why don´t you and all the UN bureaucrats quit, so we the free people of the earth can apply all those resources to fight hunger in the world?
Aron, I’d be very careful about accusing GG about having any link with Iraq’s oil for food programme.
He’s made some very robust defences against accusations of impropriety and frequently resorts to court action to defend his reputation.
If I were you I’d either cite some evidence or prepare for a knock on the door.
Perhaps the mods might want to think about this as well.
After all, George has been accused of many things but I’ve never seen him linked to global warming before.
300,000 less people to pollute, add them to the 50 million that never had a chance to.
Well, again I don’t believe this has anything to do with climate, gases, mileage requirements, and so on. It is that some people (aka democracy haters and by other names) believe certain countries have unfairly taken advantage of many billions of people and have prevented them from leading a better life. Climate change is the current perceived issue that will allow them to redistribute the wealth equitably. Cbullitt (13:36:51) makes the point bluntly that this will not work just as past wealth transfers have not worked. Only the issue changes. The solution is always the same and the non-results predictable. This is where one says, “When you keep doing something the same way and it never works, you should do something else.” Fat chance.
Have you noticed the series on the History Channel, life after man? It’s like these people want man to die out so the planet can be natural again? Or what exactly is the message?
UN Sec-Gen Kofi Annan presided over the murders of half a million people in Darfur. He said nice words, but did nothing but watch the bloodletting.
A Wall St. Journal editorial on the corrupt Kofi Annan, including Rwanda, Darfur and the UN’s Oil-for-Food corruption: click
Interesting but not surprising to see how New Scientist magazine reported this story : headline reads “Climate change could kill 500,000 a year by 2030” . Beat up of a beat up?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17218-climate-change-could-kill-500000-a-year-by-2030.html
OT: In case you all missed it: 3 nut-jobs are planning to kite ski across Greenland to, you guessed it, raise awarness of global warming. I suppose they will wear tee shirts since it will be so warm.
See: http://algorelied.com/?p=1957
Increased CO2 has raised crop yields 15 to 20%. I suggest that has saved far more than 300K lives.
Nothing increases life span and quality more than raising the standard of living, and nothing is more closely correlated with that than energy usage.
I wrote my first letter to The Times when I was sixteen – a couple of years ago 🙂
This time, I had a hard time remaining civil; ‘though I did.
Related.
“In the climate-change debate, the companies on the ‘environmental’ side have the most to gain.
First in a series.
By Lawrence Solomon
We all know that the financial stakes are enormous in the global warming debate — many oil, coal and power companies are at risk should carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases get regulated in a manner that harms their bottom line. The potential losses of an Exxon or a Shell are chump change, however, compared to the fortunes to be made from those very same regulations.
The climate-change industry — the scientists, lawyers, consultants, lobbyists and, most importantly, the multinationals that work behind the scenes to cash in on the riches at stake — has emerged as the world’s largest industry. Virtually every resident in the developed world feels the bite of this industry, often unknowingly, through the hidden surcharges on their food bills, their gas and electricity rates, their gasoline purchases, their automobiles, their garbage collection, their insurance, their computers purchases, their hotels, their purchases of just about every good and service, in fact, and finally, their taxes to governments at all levels.
These extractions do not happen by accident. Every penny that leaves the hands of consumers does so by design, the final step in elaborate and often brilliant orchestrations of public policy, all the more brilliant because the public, for the most part, does not know who is profiteering on climate change, or who is aiding and abetting the profiteers.
Some of the climate-change profiteers are relatively unknown corporations; others are household names with only their behind-the-scenes role in the climate-change industry unknown. Over the next few weeks, in an extended newspaper series, you will become familiar with some of the profiteers, and with their machinations. This series begins with Enron, a pioneer in the climate-change industry.”
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/05/30/lawrence-solomon-enron-s-other-secret.aspx
Mentioned above, also Linked from Benny Peiser’s CCNet:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/05/30/lawrence-solomon-enron-s-other-secret.aspx
And according to this article, this industry has been actively involved in suppressing and discrediting skeptical scientists.
Hence the zeal to get a ‘successor to Kyoto’, creating a world-wide cap-and-trade regime, and hence the flurry of pre-Copenhagen alarmist articles, like the bogus UN ‘study’ that claims 300K deaths each year caused by ‘climate change’.
This is a train that will not stop unless derailed. Complaints on obscure (to most people) Web sites are just pissin’ into the wind. We need a prominent voice to stand up and cry “Stop! It’s not true!” And then a way to undercut the flow of money to the ‘climate change’ industry.
/Mr Lynn
New Solar Cycle Prediction
May 29, 2009: An international panel of experts led by NOAA and sponsored by NASA has released a new prediction for the next solar cycle. Solar Cycle 24 will peak, they say, in May 2013 with a below-average number of sunspots.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29may_noaaprediction.htm?list46030
Heh, the methedology is highly dodgy too. Basically they factored out the change in disasters from earthquakes in order to remove things like urbanisation, increase in population, from the change in disasters from storms and floods. Riiight….
More details including link to their “methodology” extract here:
http://softestpawn.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/climate-change-kills-300000-a-year-at-a-guess/
which should give you plenty to get your teeth into, if you’re interested.
The thermodelusionists need perceived fear, disease, death, and destruction to advance their agenda. If they can’t base their fear mongering on real data, fabricated and indefensible data will do.
It seems fear is the “cover all bases” component of the AGW threat. It works like this… I would be much more willing to hand over my wallet to someone holding me at gun point than to someone who asks for my money politely. As to the case of the person holding the gun, I don’t believe I would ask if the gun is loaded. Neither would I ask if he can shoot straight in the event the gun is loaded. Giving up my money seems a small price to pay to not have to risk finding out. So it goes with the AGW bandalaros. It doesn’t matter if they have any real ammunition. Most won’t ask. They’ll just hand over their money and believe they made the safer, wiser choice.
Close enough for government work?
Not even good enough for “Pit Work”
Good work, as usual. Strange though, that the quotes from Pielke jump straight to points 2 and 3, skipping the preamble …
Let me say first that human-caused climate change is an important problem requiring our utmost attention. Second, the effects of disasters, particularly in poorer countries, is also an important problem that to some degree has been overlooked, as I have argued for many years.
So if the UN’s report lacks the rigour of a proper scientific study where can we turn for the truth? What we need is a report authored by academics at Professorial level at least, commissioned by a proper University and published in a top-flight journal, say The Lancet. I wonder if such a study exists? Well, lookee here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/13/climate-change-health-impact
Amazing really. I thought we were losing the battle against Malaria because the various parasites was becoming resistant to antimalerial drugs. So all we have to do is drive less. Brilliant!
But it’s printed on paper, so it must be true!
I used to think United Nations sponsored AGW was a scam, albeit the biggest scam the world has ever seen.
I now realize it’s primarily about the desperate need of secular liberals for an apocalyptic religion. The scam is just riding on back of the religous aspect.
Paul Reiter, renowned scientist of The Insects and Infectious Disease Unit, Institut Pasteur, Paris, doesn’t buy into the notion that global warming spreads malaria.
His abstract concludes: “Simplistic reasoning on the future prevalence of malaria is ill-founded; malaria is not limited by climate in most temperate regions, nor in the tropics, and in nearly all cases, “new” malaria at high altitudes is well below the maximum altitudinal limits for transmission. Future changes in climate may alter the prevalence and incidence of the disease, but obsessive emphasis on “global warming” as a dominant parameter is indefensible; the principal determinants are linked to ecological and societal change, politics and economics.”
http://climateresearchnews.com/2008/12/malaria-and-global-warming/
OT but here is NASA’s latest prediction on the solar cycles.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29may_noaaprediction.htm
Kofi Annan is one of the most corrupt UN leaders ever:
His son was involved in the oil for food scandal in Iraq and now he is part of the pr machine with the objective to put us in green shackles.
When this guy opens his mouth, take a step back because all he produces is BS.
P.s He is good friend of Oama who is producing BS as well.
NASA’s tone on the prediction of the next solar cycle for 2013? They acknowledged it’s going to be lower than normal, but don’t want to give us the ‘wrong impression’. There’s still a possibility of ‘severe space weather’. No warning of potentially cooler weather coming from all of this. Reading between the lines: didn’t they unwittingly acknowledge space weather (or lack there-of) affects our weather?
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29may_noaaprediction.htm
I’m no expert, but their prediction ends our Baby Grand this year. Is it possible that’s a little premature?
This year, the production of ethanol is UP 20%, and the price of corn has dropped by 50%.
The run-up in corn prices last year was “speculation,” and the worst floods in Decades that made it look like (to the uninitiated) yields would be Off, greatly.
There were huge droughts in Argentina, and Australia, and some governments got involved, passing export tariffs, and screwing things up in general.
In Egypt, the Bakers went on strike (yep, you heard it right,) and the Chinese farmers cut back on planting rice because of the gov. instituting large “export” tariffs.
It had, virtually, nothing to do with ethanol. Our corn exports held steady and our bean exports were UP.
Something like 70% of the Malnourished of the world are “subsistence” farmers. Their biggest problem when corn prices were extremely low (due to U.S. government subsidies to help cattle producers) was they didn’t have a CASH Crop.
Now, the U.S. taxpayer is not only Not subsidizing grain crops to the tune of $11 Billion/Yr, the subsistence farmers of the world have a chance to sell some corn, and buy some vegetables, and fruits to achieve a semi-healthy diet.
See: Malawi
“” Sean (14:11:32) : you can make a much more plausible case for climate mitigation stratagies resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. “”
If the U.N., Al Gore, et al, really did care about people and were as smart as the make themselves out to be they would have caught this observation already.
But this is sad, that they aren’t and don’t. People die as a result.
Well that just tells you all you need to know about the UN and the vast numbers of bureaucrats that rely on the funds that pour in.
IF they wanted to reduce deaths in the third world the the first place to start is sanitation and the second is medical services. One has to wonder why, given the billions flowing in, no visible progress is ever made. Perhaps we should ask how many lives in the third world could be saved if we cancelled the next 6000+ attended “climate” conference and spent those millions developing an actual sewerage system for [insert African city here] instead.
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m all for helping others around the globe to get to a point where fresh clean water and electricity becomes “so yesterday” but I don’t see the UN achieving that – ever. Too many career bureaucrats, too many “consultant reports”.
The “drift” of the UN has become far too clear of late. One World Government. One World taxes. Thirty years ago I may have thought that was a good idea along with the EU and a whole host of “One World” ideas. Not any more. Tolerating political corruption at the state level is one thing but at least I could vote them out. When was he last time YOU had any input to the UN (or the EU if you live this side) ? Billions pour in – nothing, of consequence, comes out. Meet the UN.
Revolutionary? No, we dissolved the League of Nations for exactly the same reasons. Are we any worse for the experience? Corruption of everything they ever stood for – Hotels in Bali, Prostitutes in Denmark, food for Oil, endless reports on the dangers of “global warming” same [s++t] different day for your average UN “employee”.
There is a good reason that we here in the UK get no “one man, one vote” on any major EU or UN business – our politicians (handing billions over) just don’t want to know the answer. Keep compressing the spring – Oliver Cromwell, after all, was just somebody who felt under represented (100 years before George Washington for our US viewers) – No taxation without representation.
I would like, after the dissolution of the UN, to see a new organisation grow that actually uses our taxes to do some good in developing countries. How much exactly does it cost to dig a sewerage system in [insert] city? saving [?] lives in [insert city] per year? 10 million? Plus, of course, $10 billion for the UN report into the sexistenvirocology implications of actually doing something practical.
Time to go UN.Kofi – time to get a real job. Just what have you done for the people you claim to represent with our billions? 300K dead from “Global Warming” – just how many people did you save during the last $1 billion tropical island “climate” talk shop?
Frederick Michael (14:47:03) :
Not only do more people die from natural causes in cold climate than in warm but from superstition also. This video will explain better :
Mike MacMillan:Nothing increases life span and quality more than raising the standard of living, and nothing is more closely correlated with that than energy usage
They, the Caviar leftist, don´t want it because as long as there is poverty they can profit on it as parasites.
All this propaganda on global warming/climate change it is just unbelievable; what do they want from us?. Unless their Gaia Goddess retaliates and freeze them as the mammoths in the siberian tundra, this could lead to revolutions and/or wars with more deaths that those predicted by the UN secretary.
As I Said Before, “The Gang-Green will kill us all if isn’t amputated soon!”
Sean (14:11:32) :
As for that biofuel caused commodity shortage last year…
3 Princeton Economic profs. went out and checked on the silos in the Midwest.
Found them stuffed to the gills. Apparently, they had sold all the corn they could to the biofuel industry, feedlots, etc., and still the silos were crammed.
There was no shortage, it was hoarded quietly to drive up the price, and it was a huge embarassment.
Enron would have been proud of the speculative effort that went into that con job.
Keith (13:37:59) :
Michael Crichton on DDT
hunter (13:57:53) :
>Seriously- AGW propaganda has become as predictable and boring as:……………
That Utube helped me very much clean up my laptop PC screen. Thanx Hunter!
Just add to the list:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
King of Cool (18:10:34) :
I saw cannibalism on the list :
I got such a good laugh out of this video!
Just Want Truth… (17:34:06) :
>Keith (13:37:59) :
>Michael Crichton on DDT
Very sadly Michael Crichton passed away last year, IIRC.
Could you teach me the date/year the video was taken?
I suppose it is easier to blame mankind in general and the United States in particular for the deaths of 300,000 people thru AGW rather than to admit that your failed political policies are actually killing those people and that you might actually have to do something sensible for a change. Insanity is clearly governing the world.
So, the solution to all this hullabaloo is apparently to arrest development. Umm, yah. Developing countries supposedly faring the worst, so stop development…
Tokyoboy, the video has a date stamp of 3/16/05.
There were huge droughts in … Australia (last year)
No there wasn’t. More than 80% of Australia had normal to above normal rainfall over the last 12 months (see rainfall anomaly map below). The only area significantly below normal was in the southeast corner and this area is primarily mountainous and forested with limited agriculture.
The recent Australian drought is a myth perpetuated by various vested interests, including climate alarmists. Enthuisiastically supported by the media.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/rain_maps.cgi?map=contours&variable=anomaly&area=aus&period=12month®ion=aus&time=latest
Keith (19:25:16) :
>Tokyoboy, the video has a date stamp of 3/16/05.
Oh yea, thanks. My presbyopia is really worsening ………
“My first response to the claim in the title was to demand the name of just one person who has died from man-made global warming.”
Are you willing to count death from hyperbole? Because these bogus new stories are giving me an aneurysm.
Just a quick question for anyone.
Why did they position the global atmospheric CO2 monitor on top of an active volcano???
Philip Jones: What we need is a report authored by academics at Professorial level at least, commissioned by a proper University and published in a top-flight journal, say The Lancet. I wonder if such a study exists? Well, lookee here
Is this the same The Lancet that published the very dubious Iraq casualty study? The one whose editor-in-chief, Richard Horton, says that while he once shied away from bridging potentially controversial topics in the pages of his journal, he now sees science as a way to find common ground and catalyze social change? Catalyzing social change is certainly what I think of as the proper goal of a “top-flight journal.”
The Lancet climate-change report, “Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change,” is online. Read it and cringe. This is what “top-flight journals” consider to be worthy of publication. It reads like a extra-credit report produced by a bright, well-indoctrinated high-school student.
Well, their wheat production was surely down.
All you have to do is type in “Australia wheat production.” Here’s one:
http://www.thebioenergysite.com/articles/139/world-agricultural-production-september-2008
Apparently I messed up the link to the Lancet report. It’s somewhat difficult to use HTML tags on a website without a preview feature for comments. The report is here.
source article condensed: “Won’t somebody think of the children!”
[snip – sorry]
Every week the mainstream media floods the newswires with perilous climate change predictions intended to spur the masses into taking drastic action either through fear or guilt. The actions suggested usually require massive amounts of money to be given as aid to developing nations to help them ‘cope with global warming’ and ‘develop green technologies’. Meanwhile, here in the so-called ‘rich nations’ we must concede generations of development and drastically change our lifestyle through voluntary measures suggested by guilt-ridden environmentalists, such as switching to a vegan diet or installing ‘green products’ into one’s home that are typically far too expensive for most low and middle income families budgets. And soon these changes will more-or-less be forced upon the populous as currently being drafted in congress is a climate change bill that would tax anything and everything that produces carbon emissions.
It is my belief that people cannot fully grasp the full breadth of what the green movement has become. They’re not about saving the rainforest or the polar bears, per say, as much as they are in the business of installing a new word order. A socialistic world government full of entitlements for the many that have never strived for achievement given to by the few that have. The green movement has manipulated their way to prominence using fear of calamity and guilt of consumption with the media perpetrating their every word. For example, a google news search on ‘climate change’ yielded 42,972 articles over the last one week period but ‘North Korea’ yielded a mere 39,765. Please keep in mind that North Korea detonated a nuclear bomb this week and launched -‘tested’- half a dozen surface-to-air missiles that take flight paths over Japan. They also renounced a 50+ year old truce with South Korea and threatened war. There are many other examples of factions coming to power through trepidation of the people and manipulation of the press, but they usually result in totalitarian dictatorships that generations of free people fought, and died, against but ultimately defeated.
Continue reading at Skeptic’s Corner
The most plausible account for the report is that the UN is completely off its trolley. And so is the profoundly moronic and disingenuous MSM.
But then we already know that…
Don’t worry. They will make up for the missing bodies with The Great Leap Backwards.
The Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF) headed by Annan, which produced this report, is filled with UN people. They are trying to get a global carbon tax to fund the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs). See this review of the “Human Impact” report: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/HumanImpact.htm
Be sure to read the section at the end on the GHF itself and their goals for funding the MGDs.
Lies and half truths and obfuscation, but not a lot of science.
Then I read the papers:
“Sometimes, the most effective protest crosses the boundaries of law. That does not mean activists should be free to commit crimes just to draw attention to good causes. Rather, there are times when direct action can actually change the law, nudging it into closer alignment with what the protester sees as natural justice.”
And this:
“It so happens that the ideal of saving the world from climate change is a noble one. But the theoretical argument that direct action is justified in the name of a greater good leads on to morally complex terrain. It can be deployed by all sorts of zealots who think their cause trumps the law.”
source; http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/31/kingsnorth-six-environmental-activists
So lies, half truths, obfuscation and now breaking the law(and getting away with it)- What next God? -perhaps I sit on the wrong side of the fence.
Tom (dismayed).
Philip_B (19:36:48)
This area includes my city of birth, Melbourne, which has a population of well over 3 million – more than my present hometown of Montreal, QC.
There is no doubt that the state of Victoria has been in a real drought since 1999.
Explanations welcomed!
The Daily Telegraph uncritically printed a report about this, and i just emailed this letter to them (included below). In 2007 they printed three of my letters, one about Gore and climate change. As I twice threatened to lodge a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission about misleading climate change reports, I’m probably on their black list and they won’t print it – actually, they’re unlikely to print anything that remotely criticises AGW. Still, I thought I’d go through the motions….
Letter to Daily Telegraph:
The report (30th May, page 11) which claims that 300,000 people
are killed every year by climate change is little more than political
pseudo science. Roger A. Pielke, a respected expert on the effects of
climate change, called it “a methodological embarrassment” and said
“it will harm the cause for action on both climate change and
disasters because it is so deeply flawed.”
The report ignores the fact that more people may be killed simply
because populations have grown in regions prone to extreme weather.
In reality, since 1920 the number of people killed by extreme weather
events such as storms or heat waves has been steadily falling. The
NOAA measurement of hurricane intensity shows clearly there is no
trend that corresponds with climate change and indeed the trend has
been falling during the last decade.
In short, as Pielke has pointed out, there is no credible evidence that
climate change has killed a single person. The truth may be the exact
opposite. I believe we have been incredibly lucky to have lived during
a period of modest warming, but it may be coming to an end.
Mankind has always prospered when the world was warmer, perfect
examples being the Roman and Medieval periods. It’s when the world
gets colder that people starve and civilisations fail.
At last we finally have a solution to AGW – let the UN handle it.
Given their lack of success in reigning in petty dictators like my personal favorite RG Mugabe who personally accounts for at least a few thousand deaths a year, (not counting 5 million who currently suffer from food shortage or the tens of thousands who die from lack of basic health care as a direct result of his actions) I think we are assured of a lack of swift and decisive action.
On thing we are assured of is a lot of hot air emanating from the UN!!!
At least China will ensure non-action in much the same way as they ensure non-action when ever their interests are threatened.
Goodness me – who would have thought they could have been our allies?
When will we reach the tipping point where the overwhelming evidence against global/climate change or as it is now being titled in Australia ‘reduce our carbon footprint’ will be put to an end to this nonsense.
Sorry for the off-topic post, but what about this global dimming phenomenon?
I fell on a rather dramatic and scaremongering video production they call a “documentary”, from Nova called “Dimming the Sun”
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=Global+Warming+-+Dimming+the+Sun&aq=f
What’s up with that? What counter-influence it could have on any possible global warming? What synergy could it have with the incrased cosmic radiation background resulting from low solar activity?
OT Gore lied to Congress…
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/04/shocker-snake-oil-salesman-junk.html
Instead of being rude about the UN and has-been Kofi Anan, I suggest your readers look at the report. It’s a hilariously incompetent marketing digest of scientific-sounding non sequiturs, based on some out-of-the-air calculations by the insurance giant Munich-Re.
Soot is a greenhouse gas; a third of the world is in danger from climate change, according to a report whose authors say they nothing about climate change. Even the photo credits are rubbish. The cover photo is described as: “Elderly woman looking after her cow on top of a large dyke”. There’s no cow,and no large dyke. Just a woman in a sari apparently battling rising sea levels with her umbrella.
Do read it; it’s too good to miss. Someone should do an anthology of best bits.
I saw this on CNN international they introduced the report and then went to the weather man who spoke about recent bad weather events from around the world. No explanation how it relates to climate change just a report on weather. It would be a real story if there were no bad weather in the world.
I think it worthy of note whenever the MSM publishes something even obliquely critical of the whole AGM / CO2 scam, so please all do have a look at this: The great carbon credit con which appears in today’s (UK) Sunday Mail Live Magazine.
The Mail ‘papers both have columnists (such as Richard Littlejohn) who are very much on the sceptic side, but in general they publish the AGW propaganda without comment just like all the rest. To actually print a long report on a real journalistic investigation is quite a step out of the box, even if it doesn’t directly try to debunk AGW as such. Please do have a read.
The most likely cause of death due to AGW today is malnutrition and starvation secondary to the increased use of corn as a supplement to gasoline. The ethanol being produced from the grain is using up foodstores and driving up corn prices and making supply limited.
And for what? Does it really decrease GHG??? Nope. More liberal environmental good intentions that are paving there way to hell…
Unfortunately, between the ideologically-motivated political elites in the Western world who are pushing the ‘climate change’ program, and the business elites who have jumped on the bandwagon and now stand to profit from it, it doesn’t look like any amount of contrary evidence will avail.
It’s now not a scientific question, but a political one. Unless major political parties in the USA, UK, France, Australia, Italy, Germany, etc. stand up and challenge the socialists who are running away with the ball, there will be no stopping them.
The Republicans in the USA have been no help. During the last presidential campaign, the Republican candidate (McCain) had his own ‘cap-and-trade’ legislation already proposed. Even Newt Gingrich sat down with Nancy Pelosi and made a ‘climate change’ commercial. Until the leaders of the party wise up (I’m assuming the Democrats are beyond hope) and realize that they and the American people are being sold a bill of goods, there will be no ‘tipping point’.
I have sent a letter to Mitt Romney urging him to take the lead in opposing ‘carbon’ legislation, but neither he nor his staff have even shown me the courtesy of an acknowledgement.
At this point, the only chance is for the people to convince their elected representatives that support for ‘climate change’ legislation will not have public support. The place to start is with the current ‘energy bill’ that has already passed a House committee. Call your Congressman.
/Mr Lynn
[snip -OT]
Only Truth,
Our Corn “carryover” this year was 1.7 Billion Bushels. This is up 300 Million Bushels from last year, and one of the highest on record.
Which do you think is the most likely to cause “starvation?” A Two Cent rise in the cost of a daily ration of corn, or a Two Dollar rise in the cost of a gallon of gasoline? Yeah, me too.
At first glance, Mauna Loa doesn’t seem like a good location for a CO2 monitor…An active volcano situated on a rather “carbon-rich” island. Hawai’i is the land of “Vog”…Volcanic smog and lush tropical forests on the eastern part of the Big Island. Although large parts of Hawai’i are actually considered to have a Maritime Desert climate.
But the reason is relatively simple…There was already an observatory there. The CO2 is sampled from air that is above the Boundary Layer; ostensibly free from surface effects.
The Keeling Curve has the longest history of CO2 continuous measurements; but over the past 50 years a network of similar stations has become active. They all show roughly the same pattern of increasing CO2.
50 years is not a long time period…And the CO2 measurements carry no definitive anthropogenic fingerprints. It’s a reasonable assumption that some of the CO2 increase is anthropogenic; but there’s no really accurate way to quantify the natural vs. anthropogenic components.
“” tokyoboy (18:39:16) :
Just Want Truth… (17:34:06) :
>Keith (13:37:59) :
>Michael Crichton on DDT””
March 7, 2005
http://www.studentsandleaders.org/la/project/pressrelease.pdf
Added to his web site March 16, 2005
http://www.crichton-official.com/videos.html
&
http://www.crichton-official.com/video-studentsandleaders-question3.html
—————————————————————–
p.s. click around the internet you and can find just about anything in a couple minutes
Ho Hum,
300,000 deaths ’caused’ by global warming.
Approximately 5 Billion lives ‘saved’ by the increased use of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution.
The current carrying capacity of the planet is a direct consequence of fossil fuel use.
Fossil fuel use has so far frustrated the fears of Thomas Malthus.
Who really wishes to be the agent of the theories of Malthus coming true ?
Overenthusiastic restraint in the use of (or pricing of) fossil fuels will kill billions.
Deal with the genuine disadvantages of fossil fuel use such as non CO2 pollution and resource depletion by all means available but to go further than that involves the prospect of the genocide of a large proportion of humanity in favour of a speculative utopian world view.
Others tried that approach and were found wanting by the death rate in all those nations which tried it. Stalinist Russia, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Mao’s China and others.
Must we really re-tread past failures but on a global scale ?
Learn from the errors of the 20th Century. Do not repeat them on a global scale in the 21st.
” It’s a reasonable assumption that some of the CO2 increase is anthropogenic;”
I’m not sure it is a reasonable assumption.
If we could magically remove all the CO2 man has produced from the atmosphere then within a few months (I guess) it would be back because every breaking wave, every bursting bit of sea foam would give out CO2 till it had recovered to today’s equilibrium.
With all due respect, I cannot think of a more corrupt organization than the U.N. This is just another one of the examples as to why this is a statement of fact.
Global warming is a fairy tale. Ask any scientist work their weight.
What’s the point? We’re all going to be eating global warming hot apple pie soon: http://apocalypsecakes.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/global-warming-hot-apple-pie/
Kum Dollison (10:18:34) :
‘Our Corn “carryover” this year was 1.7 Billion Bushels. This is up 300 Million Bushels from last year, and one of the highest on record.’
Jumped on the old subsidized the farmer ethanol production bandwagon program and produced too much corn?
I’ll say what I want about Galloway. He has no defence and is as easy to read as the back of the Communist Manifesto : Islamist Edition. I don’t want to get political here but my final word on Galloway, Monbiot, the Respect Party and the Greens is I hope they get what is coming to them and by that I mean something really bad. How dare they attempt to bring totalitarianism to us masqueraded as ecology.
Oh dear. George Moonbat has read the press release. Please see the link.
BTW, I am from Zambia, I still have family living there. Monze has NOT had a drought, the rains were good this year. AIDS is brought in by the truck drivers taking produce away from this farming area.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/may/29/monbiot-kofi-annan-climate-change
I was really holding out hope that eventually the truth of what is really happening with global temperatures and melting ice (NOT) would some day turn this global warming jugernaut around. It is really demoralizing to see stories like this. It is apparent that if the facts don’t support the global warming agenda that they are just going to make up whatever they want to keep it going. It appears that the press is so brain washed that they will go along with it too without challenging it. Is all hope for the truth lost????
‘Our Corn “carryover” this year was 1.7 Billion Bushels. This is up 300 Million Bushels from last year, and one of the highest on record.’
Since it’s subsidized, I guess our debt went up…
“Which do you think is the most likely to cause “starvation?” A Two Cent rise in the cost of a daily ration of corn, or a Two Dollar rise in the cost of a gallon of gasoline?”
“No-one knows who I am,” George Hussein Onyango Obama, 26, told the magazine. “I live here on less than a dollar a month.”
It depends on who you are and where you live.
I have been around for more decades than I care to admit, and I have never seen anything quite as appalling as this collective blindness. The ’60s were maybe crazier, but the establishment, however beleaguered, was able to muddle through to some kind of middle ground. There was active, often violent, debate. But today we have the political and media establishments engaged in a kind of millenarian crusade, and the bulk of the population are acquiescing like stupefied sheep.
The Realists have got to find a way to wake people up before the whole society marches blindly off the cliff in search of the solution to chimera of ‘climate change’. But Realists are by their very nature averse to engaging in crusades, even an ‘anti-crusade’.
The Alarmists pushing for world-wide governmental action to stop ‘climate change’ can sway even reluctant believers with appeals to the high priesthood of establishment ‘scientists’, dismissing skeptics as cranks and heretics. Unless the Realists can convince enough of that priesthood to defect and announce that the Alarmists are wrong, that there is no problem with burning fossil fuels and making more CO2, I do not see how the Realists can turn around the march to the cliff.
It is past time for a Martin Luther of Realists to nail a declaration to the doors of Congress and the other parliaments in the West, challenging the priesthood and calling on them to debate in public. Who among Realists is brave enough to take on that role?
/Mr Lynn
No, Old Construction Worker, we didn’t produce “too much” corn. We always carry a billion, or so, bushels forward. It gives insurance against a truly catastrophic harvest. The point is that this was just kind of an “average” year that ended up with, more or less, average prices.
And, no, Mike, the taxpayer did not subsidize corn this year. Nor, last year. We used to subsidize corn to the farmer to about $8 Billion/Yr, but not any more. That extra three, or four cents/lb made all the difference.
As for Mr “Obama:” He’s either a liar, or Pot is awfully cheap in Kenya. When the camera crews finally caught up with him, he and his buddies and a couple of prostitutes were having a ganja party. Don’t expect US to believe everything YOU read.
Koffi is a scammer reinforcing his scam. Yawn.
Here is a fun link list of all of the stuff caused by AGW. Check it out, it has everything from incresed sexual promiscuity to the earth turning upside down.
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
For the O/T on the white roofs, don’t knock it ’till ya try it. I painted my galvanized roof with a white sealant and saw an immediate and significant drop (almost 10º F on a sunny 90º August day) in inside temps. It saved me a lot of $$ on running the A/C. That is a real tangible benefit to the AGW effort via less electricity going through my meter. I wouldn’t have a dark colored roof unless I could change it back in the summer.
As far as the reflected heat, that is a non-starter. On the larger scale, it doesn’t really matter if the heat is held on your black roof, or reflected. That heat is still there, just in a different place.
Dave Middleton (10:52:27) :
Thanks for the info.
Completely off topic but todays Non Sequitur comic hits with a ring of truth.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19798680?cat=nq&d=090601
Ray B
“That heat is still there, just in a different place.”
Especially if the greenhouse effect works like the warmists insist. Have they thought this through..? 🙂
Not sure if anyone else has posted these letters from today’s times.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article6400887.ece
Sorry if I’ve come in late on this discussion, or indeed if this point has already been raised, but I originally saw this article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph, and was immediately filled with despair. Not because of the apparently vast amount of deaths allegedly due to global warming, but by the appalling lack of what used to be good solid journalism. Instead we get a basic reprint of pure propaganda. If only this journalist had done a little homework and discovered, as in a previous post on this web site, that annual deaths in the world are around the 56 million mark !
Unfortunately, the scare mongers seem to have hijacked the worlds media, and despite the commendable efforts of web site like this, the juggernaut seems to be unstoppable.
I hope this reads coherently, just finished three glasses of wine ‘cos I’m so depressed with it all !!
Nay, nay.
‘Tis coherent, and quite a good rant!
Now, my caution though, it (you!) should NOT be content with a “good” rant, nor even “quite good a rant”.
YOU – as a reader and writer and righter of other readers – must create quite a noisy, non-quiet rant in the local press that you DO get attention by writing about the subject, by writing about it again, and by talking informatively about the subject to others who HAVE only read the media’s propaganda.
(Your bitter whine glass – unless it is read by others who don’t now know, will not matter if it were originally filled with white, red, or blush before it became vinegar.)
Non Sequitur
Good spot! Very apposite.
It also reminded me of this, from Steven Jay Gould, a thought that Hansen, Mann and Co. could usefully have pinned to their respective walls:
“Objectivity cannot be equated with mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny—and also in a willingness to revise or abandon your theories when the tests fail (as they usually do).”
This is off-thread, but I think that it may be worthy of a thread of its own: couldn’t see a better place in recent posts.
In the most recent issue of Geoscientist (the magazine (not journal)) of the Geological Society of London (http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/site/GSL/lang/en/page5546.html) there is a report of recent research published in the Journal of Environmental Quality (abstract at http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/38/2/654) concerning the amount of methane released by landfill sites and which is released into the atmosphere.
According to the article, the IPCC currently assumes that between 0 and 10% of the methane produced in landfill sites oxidized before is released into the atmosphere. The new research finds that this figure is far too low, and that in a range of samples, the mean values ranged from 22% oxidation in clayey soil to 55% in sandy soil. The standard error was 6%.
The upshot of this, of course, is that landfill sites may not contribute such a high percentage of their methane emissions into the atmosphere. The methane threat, as the author in Geoscientist writes, may be overblown.
Hi all. I live in Toronto, and I’m just about ready to punch anyone who breaths a single word about how the world is overheating. On the back of the coldest May I’ve seen here in many years, I would like to say that up in cottage country, in the Muskokas, this past weekend, it snowed for 3 hours and left snow on the ground. I have had to turn the furnace on in my house several times in the dying days of May. It is not unusual for it to go down to 4C at night. In short, it is unusually cold, most of the warm spells were immediately cleared out by strong northerlies that gave us brief but violent thunderstorms and then COLD, COLD and more COLD. Most of Canada is well below “normals” for this time of year.
Let me say–the Chinese and the India(n)s will have improved and increased nuclear electric energy before we do, and probably cheaper gosoline and diesel fuel as well–and not so many words about AGW.
I hope India and China both show up with great nuclear electric energy production soon, and slow up the almighty global alwarmists.
I find it hard to listen to the self righteousness of Annan who won a Nobel Prize for presiding over the massacre of about a million Rawandans, especially since the UN was warned in advance by the UN Commander (Canadian) General Romeo D’Allaire. Apparently no one was available to answer the phone when he called and no preparations were made when they finally did get the message.
Also, if 300,000 a year were to be dying from Global Warming, it would be something to be concerned about, but how can our NGO and UN friends calculate this statistic against a background scores of millions killed in conflicts in Africa (one estimate 13million in the last 10 years and this may not be the worst 10 years – I was in Nigeria when over 3million died in the 1960s in civil war and associated disease and starvation:
http://www.arcuk.org/pages/apology-9m-deaths.htm
thats more than four times as many a year as our alleged Global Warming deaths and dwarfs what we call the World Wars. If this was happening in North America, we would be thought to be in need of a head examination if we were to be underscoring such comparatively quiet AGW deaths
Lets see now: there are 53 countries in Africa that works out to 5,660 AGW deaths a year per country on average – meanwhile over the last 50 years ….. Angola, Congo, Rawanda, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Darfur, Somalia …. definitely the global warming deaths would be hard to count among the bodies there and lets not forget the despots: Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe – try to count the AGW deaths among the untold hundreds of thousands who have been killed, died of starvation and are now dying of cholera in Zimbabwe because the government has run the country down to social and economic ruin. I better snip the rest of this before I get on to the deterioration of the Nobel Prize into a political prize over the past few decades.
Off topic but on topic so to speak. I can’t help but think Non Sequitur is talking about CO2 and the IIPC.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19798680/?cat=nq
Anthony, if you would rather not have humorous posts on your site please tell me.
Not everyone uses such silly language.
Please would you highlight Lord Paul Drayson’s address recently?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6422769.ece?Submitted=true
Lord Drayson is a successful bioscience entrepreneur who became a Government Minister relatively recently in the UK.
Just to keep skeptics grounded in the reality that not ALL Governments are totally in thrall to the extremists’ messages…..?