Guest essay by Patrick Moore, PhD
Some time ago it struck me that the majority of alleged environmental catastrophes and threats are invisible or very remote, thus making it virtually impossible for the average person to validate them through observation. Observations, along with replications of those observations, are the very foundation of the scientific method. Seeing is believing, and seeing the same result again and again under similar circumstances reinforces the belief. Is it possible that activist groups and the media choose to cite supposed catastrophes and threats that are invisible, very remote or both because the majority of people cannot verify them in person and therefore must rely on the activists, the media, and other third parties to tell them the truth? At the conclusion of this essay, the reader may judge. Here’s a list of some of the alleged invisible catastrophes and threats of doom, beginning with one of the former.
Coral reefs around the world are dying
This is only one of the many supposed catastrophes blamed on invisible human CO2 emissions and human-caused climate change. In April 2016 most major media outlets ran a story implying that 93% of the Great Barrier Reef, the largest in the world, was “dead”, “nearly dead”, or “dying”.1 This was all based on a report that 93% of reefs in the northern section had “some bleaching”. “Some” could be only 1 percent. And bleaching is not death or even dying. It is a normal occurrence during periods of high heat and the coral usually recovers. Of course, as with all species, some are dying and others are being born at any given time.
It is well known that the world’s warmest oceans are in the region of Indonesia, the Philippines, and the Solomon Islands. This area is called the Coral Triangle and it harbors the world’s largest number of coral species and the largest number of reef fish and other reef dwellers.2 Surely this puts to rest the assertion that the world’s seas are “too hot” for coral reefs due to climate change.
recover once a hot spell ends.
How is the average person in Europe or North America supposed to “see for themselves” what is really occurring? Not only is the reef thousands of miles away from most people and far offshore, it is below the surface of the sea. Hundreds of millions of people were told the reef was doomed when we now know much of the bleached coral has already recovered. But that fact was barely reported in major media outlets. Fake news flies, the real story never gets off the ground.
Polar bears will become extinct
Again, climate change is the culprit. Melting Arctic ice, thinner ice, and not enough seals to eat are said to be a threat to the bear’s very existence.3 How many people can go to the Arctic and get a good look at the polar bear population? The truth is the polar bear population has increased from about 6,000 – 8,000 in the 1960s to 25,000 – 28,000 today.4 This is due mainly to a treaty signed by all the Arctic nations in 1973 that ended the unregulated hunting of polar bears.5 There is no real reason to fear for their demise. We know polar bears survived the last interglacial period, the Eocene Eemian, 120,000 years ago, which was warmer than the current Holocene interglacial period. But photos of old starving bears, bears supposedly “trapped” on ice floes, and bears that are thin after a long hibernation, are effectively employed to perpetuate the myth that they are threatened with extinction.
Climate catastrophe is inevitable due an increase in atmospheric CO2 if we don’t end the use of fossil fuels
Not only is CO2 invisible, is also odorless and tasteless so cannot be sensed without sophisticated equipment. Yet we are told it is causing a catastrophe of global proportions. The facts that CO2 is lower in the atmosphere today than it has been through nearly all the history of life and that global temperature during the ongoing 2.5 million-year long Pleistocene Ice Age is colder than it has been for the past 250 million years are simply ignored.6 Never mind the fact that CO2 is the basis for all life on Earth. CO2 in the atmosphere and in the oceans is where the carbon in carbon-based life originates. At least some attention is now given to the fact that the increase in our CO2 emissions is causing a greening of the Earth and the spreading of trees to areas that were too dry for them under low-CO2 conditions. During the past 150 million years CO2 had steadily declined to such a low level that plants were seriously threatened with starvation during the peak of the last few glacial cycles. Thankfully, our CO2 emissions have inadvertently reversed that trend, bringing some balance back to the global carbon cycle. All of this can be verified yet the narrative of “climate catastrophe”, which has no basis in science, is hollered from rooftops around the world.
Pesticide residues in our food causes cancer, birth defects, autism, and brain damage
One “health food” website claims pesticide residues in food cause nine diseases. It’s unfortunate that we can’t see, smell, or taste these “residues”. They cannot be observed which makes it easy to invent stories about an “invisible poison”.
and vegetables that have been sprayed with lawfully
approved pesticides.
In 1997, the Cancer Research Institutes of the United States and Canada published a multi-year study of all scientific publications reporting on any connection between cancer in humans and pesticide residues in food. They did not find a single piece of credible evidence connecting the two. And yet they concluded that 30 percent of human cancers are caused by tobacco consumption, from a natural plant, and that 35% of cancers are caused by poor diet, mainly too much fat and cholesterol, also natural substances.8
“Africa’s Oldest Baobab Trees are Dying at an Unprecedented Rate, and Climate Change may be to Blame.”
This is the actual headline from a USA Today article on June 11, 2018. Nearly every major news outlet ran with the story as if it were a harbinger of global doom.9 Even the online version of Encyclopedia Britannica gave credence to the story. No dead trees were depicted in any of the many articles I searched on the Internet. My first rule of critical thinking is never to trust a report that begins with the words “may”, “might’ or “could”. It should read, “may or may not”, might or might not, etc.
Many readers may or may not have stopped to think that it is perfectly natural for the oldest individuals of any species to die before the younger ones eventually pass away as they too grow old. It might be worth worrying if the youngest baobab trees were dying at an unprecedented rate if such a rate could be established with credible data. On the other hand the natural survival rate of the young of many species is very low.
As for an “unprecedented rate” of older trees dying, the only data provided in the source paper is from a Romanian chemistry professor who claims, “Eight of the 13 oldest trees in Africa have died over the past decade.” 10
Baobabs have a wide distribution in Africa, across the sub-Saharan belt and down the east coast as far as South Africa. My research produced no estimate of the total number of Baobab trees in Africa but one could hazard a guess that there are tens if not hundreds of thousands. Without a doubt it would not be unprecedented for eight of the oldest trees to die in a ten-year period. This is less than one tree per year. This might or might not be the silliest story to be taken seriously by the worldwide media lately. Even Fox News covered it.
GMOs will harm us and damage the environment.
A cob of conventional corn looks identical to a cob of GM corn. The GM corn may actually look better because it was better protected from insect damage due to the modification of its genes.
GM zealots must resort to scary fake images to drive their campaigns.
The USFDA says they are “substantially equivalent”, in other words not different from each other in any meaningful way. Yet hundreds of activist groups insist there is something in the GM corn, obviously something invisible, that will do evil things to the planet and us.11
Monsanto, basically a seed and crop protection company, is vilified as if it were producing weapons of mass destruction and using them on civilians. Every credible food, health, and science organization says GM food is perfectly safe 12 But the propaganda about an invisible poison is effective, and because people can’t “see for themselves” they worry a lot about themselves and their children.
Farmed salmon are full of poisons and they are destroying the wild salmon.
Of course the “poisons” are invisible and the salmon are below the surface of the sea where only a diver could inspect them. The anti-salmon farm activists contend that farmed salmon are spreading disease and sea-lice to wild salmon stocks.13 In fact the farmed salmon are raised in land-based hatcheries and are disease-free and lice-free when they are placed into pens in the sea. It is the wild salmon that give diseases and lice to the farmed fish. But the activists get away with their “story” and the media goes along because it sells papers and their readers and viewers can’t go down in the ocean to check out the truth for themselves. Farming salmon and the many other species raised in aquaculture is a sustainable development. It takes fishing pressure off wild stocks, many of which are seriously depleted. It produces one of the healthiest sources of protein and contains beneficial omega-3 oils. And aquaculture provides employment for tens of millions of people worldwide, often in remote coastal and inland communities.14
Nuclear energy is too dangerous and radiation will kill you15
Have you ever seen any nuclear radiation? No, because it is invisible – you need a Geiger counter to detect it, which most homes are not equipped with. The fact is in terms of fatalities per unit of energy produced; nuclear is the safest technology of them all. There has been only one nuclear accident that caused death to civilians, Chernobyl, and according to the World Health Organization it was responsible for 56 deaths.16 More than that were killed in a single hydroelectric dam accident in Russia in 2009. 17 In the Fukushima incident in 2011 no one died from radiation and according the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima, there will be no discernable health effects in the future.18 Yet activist groups have so scared the public with this invisible “threat” that Germany has decided to shut all its nuclear plants and many countries have decided not to build any more. Meanwhile China, India, and Russia have surpassed the West in nuclear technology and are building scores of new nuclear plants because they know it is the future of electricity production.
There is a “sea of plastic” the size of Texas in the North Pacific Gyre north of Hawaii
First question: have you ever seen an aerial or satellite photograph of the “sea of plastic”? Probably not, because it doesn’t really exist. But it makes a good word- picture and after all plastic is full of deadly poisons and is killing seabirds and marine mammals by the thousands.
This is also fake news and gives rise to calls for bans on plastic and other drastic measures. Silly people are banning plastic straws as if they were a dire threat to the environment. The fact is a piece of plastic floating in the ocean is no more toxic than a piece of wood. Wood has been entering the sea in vast quantities for millions of years. And in the same way that floating woody debris provides habitat for barnacles, seaweeds, crabs, and many other species of marine life, so does floating plastic. That’s why seabirds and fish eat the bits of plastic, to get the food that is growing on them. While it is true that some individual birds and animals are harmed by plastic debris, discarded fishnets in particular, this is far outweighed by the additional food supply it provides. Plastic is not poison or pollution, it is litter.
“There are a possible 3,000,000 undersea volcanoes doing something unobserved.”
This is a direct quote from a Science Daily article on February 15, 2015.19 The article refers to “a new study” attributed to the Earth Institute at Columbia University, which speculates that millions of undersea volcanoes are spewing millions of tons of CO2 into the ocean. No mention is made of the fact that the US Geological Service estimates that volcanic activity produces less than one percent of the CO2 emissions produced from human use of fossil fuels,20 or that there is really no direct evidence that CO2 causes global warming as claimed by so many activist scientists, media and politicians. The only proven effect of CO2 is to increase the growth of trees and food crops and to make plants more efficient with water. This has resulted in a “greening of the Earth” and the spread of trees into areas that were previously too dry for them. For a discussion on the important role of CO2 as the basis of all life on Earth you can download my paper on the subject here.21
Ocean “Acidification” will kill all the coral reefs and shellfish in the world
Once again, invisible CO2 will wreck havoc by so drastically lowering the pH of the oceans it will make it impossible for the out-of-sight corals and shellfish to produce their calcareous shells, thus undermining the entire food chain in the sea and destroying fisheries worldwide. This story was invented around 2004; co-incident with the beginning of the 20-year “pause” in global warming that began around 1998. The fact is coral reefs evolved when CO2 was at least 10 times higher than today and corals have survived and thrived for hundreds of millions of years since then. It is also a fact that the Humboldt Current off Peru, which has the highest CO2 and lowest pH in the world’s oceans, produces 20 percent of the world’s fish catch. In other words more CO2 is good for growth in the sea in the same way it is on land. It doesn’t take much research to conclude that ocean “acidification” is one big fabrication. For an in-depth discussion my paper on the subject can be downloaded here. 22
And finally,
“Climate Change is Killing the Cedars of Lebanon”
A July 18, 2018 article in The New York Times reports that rising temperatures are driving the Cedars of Lebanon to extinction.23 All the numerous photos in the article are of healthy living trees with the exception of one lonely sawed-off stump that is claimed to have died from an insect infestation. In flowery language the anguish of impending doom is expressed with appropriate references to Jesus and God. In fact the range of the Cedars of Lebanon has been drastically reduced over the centuries by cutting the trees for timber and converting the land to other uses – a classic case of deforestation as opposed to reforestation. Grazing land for goats, sheep and cattle have replaced the forests over wide areas and the grazers ensure that no new trees can establish themselves. Most of the remaining cedars are in protected reserves where there is no evidence of impending extinction or mass die-off. A careful reader will detect that all the dire predictions are just that; unsupported speculation into the future. Very few people have the ability to go to Lebanon and make a thorough investigation into the state of the cedar forests. No doubt if a knowledgeable person reported that the existing trees were in a state of good health the New York Times would not print it.
Conclusion
Is it just a coincidence that 12 of the most publicized alleged environmental catastrophes and threats of doom happen to be invisible or very remote, or both? Or is it just so much easier to create a fake “narrative” when the public can’t check it out for themselves? I will leave that judgement to the reader.
REFERENCES:
1 Chris D’Angelo, “93 Percent Of The Great Barrier Reef Is Practically Dead – Climate Change is Destroying Earth’s Largest https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/climate-change-destroying-great-barrier-reef_us_571918e6e4b0d912d5fde8d4
2 “Coral Triangle Facts”. World Wildlife Fund, http://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/where_we_work/coraltriangle/coraltrianglefacts/
3 Stephen Leahy, “Polar Bears Really Are Starving Because of Global Warming, Study Shows” National Geographic, February 1, 2018. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/polar-bears-starve-melting-sea-ice-global-warming- study-beaufort-sea-environment/
4 Susan Crockford, “Science, optimism, and the resilience of polar bears in an ever-changing Arctic”. January 15, 2018. https://polarbearscience.com/2018/01/15/science-optimism-and-the-resilience-of-polar-bears-in-an-ever-changing- arctic/
5 “Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears.” IUCN-SSG Polar Bear Specialist Group, Oslo, 15 November 1973. http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/agreements/agreement1973.html
6 “Carbon Dioxide through Geologic Time.” University of California San Diego. http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/07_1.shtml
7 Patrick Moore, “The Positive Impact of Human CO2 Emissions on the Survival of Life on Earth”. Frontier Centre For Public Policy, June 2016. https://www.dropbox.com/s/uhq557vrnww0ala/UpdatedCO2Paper.pdf?dl=0
8 Len Ritter et al, “Report of a Panel on the Relationship between Public Exposure to Pesticides and Cancer,” Cancer 80 (1997): 2019–33. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/(SICI)1097-0142(19971115)80:10%3C2019::AID- CNCR21%3E3.0.CO;2-Z
9 “Africa’s Oldest Baobab Trees are Dying at an Unprecedented Rate, and Climate Change may be to Blame.” USA Today, June 11, 2018. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/06/11/baobab-trees-dying-africa-climate- change/690946002/
10 Ibid.
11 Mike Adams, “The GMO debate is over; GM crops must be immediately outlawed; Monsanto halted from threatening humanity.” Natural News, September 21, 2012 https://www.naturalnews.com/037262_GMO_Monsanto_debate.html
12 David Tribe, “600+ Published Safety Assessments.” http://gmopundit.blogspot.ca/p/450-published-safety-assessments.html
13 “W5 investigates the battle over farmed Atlantic salmon on the B.C. coast.” CTV, October 14, 2017. https://sooke.pocketnews.ca/w5-investigates-the-battle-over-farmed-atlantic-salmon-on-the-b-c-coast/
14 “State of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2016.
15 Caroline Lucas, “Why we must phase out nuclear power.” The Guardian, February 17, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/17/phase-out-nuclear-power
16 “Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident.” World Health Organization, Geneva, 2006. http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/who_chernobyl_report_2006.pdf
17 “2009 Sayano–Shushenskaya power station accident.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano%E2%80%93Shushenskaya_power_station_accident
18 Richard Knox, “Why We May Not Learn Much New About Radiation Risks From Fukushima.” NPR, March 24, 2011. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2011/03/24/134833008/why-we-may-not-learn-much-new-about- radiation-risks-from-fukushima
19 “Seafloor volcano pulses may alter climate: Strikingly regular patterns, from weeks to eons.” Science Daily, Feb. 15, 2015. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150205142921.htm
20 “Are Volcanoes or Humans Harder on the Atmosphere?” Scientific American,
(not dated) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earthtalks-volcanoes-or-humans/
21 Patrick Moore, “The Positive Impact of Human CO2 Emissions on the Survival of Life on Earth”. Frontier Centre For Public Policy, June 2016. https://www.dropbox.com/s/uhq557vrnww0ala/UpdatedCO2Paper.pdf?dl=0
22 Patrick Moore, “Ocean ‘Acidification’ Alarmism In Perspective.” Frontier Centre For Public Policy, November 2015. https://www.dropbox.com/s/50yr1b10fyj67t3/UpdatedOceanPaper.pdf?dl=0
23 “Climate Change is Killing the Cedars of Lebanon”. New York Times, July 18, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/18/climate/lebanon-climate-change-environment-cedars.html
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“Photos like this are so obviously faked because nearly all these plastic objects could have been passed through an albatross’s digestive tract.”
An expert on bird biology are you now Anthony? You do know many birds eat stones that STAY in their stomach, to help them grind up plant food? Apparently why they fins fishing weights, which are what, 1 to 1.5 cm in diameter, attractive.
And I suppose these are all fake too eh?
https://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1CHBD_en-GBGB735GB736&biw=1229&bih=607&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=oWJlW9znBanMgAbluovYBQ&q=dead+seabirds+fulll+of+plastic&oq=dead+seabirds+fulll+of+plastic&gs_l=img.3…4319.6046.0.6733.8.8.0.0.0.0.148.755.5j3.8.0….0…1c.1.64.img..2.0.0….0._DPtnxedIAc
Stop it, you are making a fool of yourself.
Yes, they are !!
MattS,
I especially like the pics of the polar bear that died from eating plastic tourists and the one where the bird is eating the computer key board!
You must have gone a long way through the pics to find those, but you know googles search turns up some strange ones. That you have to highlight those shows your desperation to deny all the other valid photos.
MattS, in your opinion, it’s possible for birds to be so full of plastic that there is no room left for any internal organs?
You are the one making a fool of yourself.
You never heard of decomposition? DO those birds look freshly dead, or have the organs rotted away leaving feathers and plastic?
Wow, now there is a thought for you!
Seriously?
The stones and bits of glass, and other hard objects eaten by some birds, usually to aid digestion by breaking up the hard seeds that forms their diets, pass through on a regular basis. Ever observe a rain-cleansed pile of chicken droppings? Likely as not you’ll see smoothed bits of shell, bone, stone, etc., even plastic, in the remaining bit. Guarantee you will – and these bits are usually much smaller than they were when ingested.
Why do you think seed eating birds are always pecking at road edges and roofs? They are after more grit so the seeds they eat (and hard chitin coverings of insects they eat) can be broken up and made more easily digested.
And it is called a crop, not a stomach.
Very well written, making a lot of sense, thanks.
“The fact is a piece of plastic floating in the ocean is no more toxic than a piece of wood. Wood has been entering the sea in vast quantities for millions of years. And in the same way that floating woody debris provides habitat for barnacles, seaweeds, crabs, and many other species of marine life, so does floating plastic. That’s why seabirds and fish eat the bits of plastic, to get the food that is growing on them. While it is true that some individual birds and animals are harmed by plastic debris, discarded fishnets in particular, this is far outweighed by the additional food supply it provides.”
Oh for gods sake Anthony stop it! You are making a fool of yourself.
No different to wood? Except it is brightly colored and looks like food to a bird/fish.
No different to wood? Except that it takes a couple of hundred years to break down.
“That’s why seabirds and fish eat the bits of plastic, to get the food that is growing on them.”
What utter crap. Do you know ANYTHING about fishing? Ever wondered why lures are so bright and shiny?
Recent research shows that plastics emit a sulfurous smell that some seabirds find attractive. http://theconversation.com/the-oceans-are-full-of-plastic-but-why-do-seabirds-eat-it-68110
You are losing it and turning this website into a joke.
[? .mod]
Get a grip, MattS. I have never seen any one demonstrate that plastic actually represents a significant large scale hazard in the environment.And I used to wish my synthetic climbing ropes would last hundreds of years in the environment.
Just because a few creatures come to an unfortunate end that does not mean that a large fraction do. Otherwise we would ban barbed-wire fencing, glass bottles, and a vast array of other materials and objects of various shapes and sizes. You think wood doesn’t take up smells from the environment? You also are in no position to know what smells another creature is really responding to.
The objections are largely based on emotional anecdotes. I think it really is a problem of littering, not pollution. Humans also notice plastic in the environment than plant and mineral-based objects, contributing to the perception of a problem when it is largely just an eyesore, an affront to our perception of an imagined previouly pristine environment.
Where I live, the problem is magnified by fly-tipping which is probably due to excessive cost of waste disposal. In turn, this is the direct result of environmental laws often based on unreasonable objections to incineration as a cost effective method of waste disposal. The local authority makes the local waste disposal site keep short hours for very cynical reasons. It is the same as the national government forcing local government to obey EU-wide directives while washing their hands of the extra costs involved.
Also, read harder. The article is not written by Anthony.
Did you actually read and understand what I wrote? Wood picks up smells from the environment? What on earth are you talking about?
Oh, and it is Anthony’s website, he is responsible for what is on it.
MattS,
I love it when you go completely off the rails! You do so well without any prodding. Please “don’t stop it”.
Wow, MattS, take a break and then your meds…..
Feeble ad hominem attack. Now what do you remind me of?
When you can quote actual science instead of a pathetic propaganda site, you will stop making a fool of yourself.
I found a number of papers on why some sea birds are attracted to plastic. This was a general discussion. Propaganda? No, it is science. You are little better than a CAGW alarmist if you don’t look at the facts.
MattS
You really must try harder to maintain your anonymity on the internet.
http://projectpuffin.audubon.org/sites/g/files/amh646/f/styles/bean_wysiwyg_full_width/public/macpuffinlg.jpg?itok=eSnJlgcC
An absolutely excellent article putting things in perspective.
Agreed. I have forwarded the article to eight people (friends) who are AGW fanatics. I hope they read it. If everyone who agrees with the content of Patrick Moore’s excellent article also forwarded it to as many friends and believers as they can, it would have a massive effect on our cause, and the development of this site. So come on everybody, let’s spread the word as widely as we possibly can through just spending a minute or too on your computer. It is the duty of all of us to spread the truth about the broken, so called, science that we have all experienced for far too long.
To be fair, Chernobyl killed, and still kills, alot more than 56 people. But it is not easy to say exactly how many but surely thousands of lethal cancers. The military clean up crews alone were hundreds of thousands men, probably poorly educated and equipped.
Just because you want to believe something, doesn’t make it true.
The linear no threshold theory of radiation hazard was disproven decades ago. There is no danger from low levels of radiation.
Some levels above ambient may even be beneficial.
They do encourage mutations helpful to evolution.
You can add “Acid Rain” and the “Ozone Hole” to the list.
The idiocy of enviro-activism is neatly demonstrated by the slogan painted on this jumbo.
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/a380-airbus-plane-flight-norwegian-london-new-york-rolls-royce-boeing-787-a8476761.html
Even more ludicrous than the lamenting Micronesians building new airstrips to get the tourists flying in.
Excellent read. Cheers Patrick
have to take issue on the gmo food one
sunstantial equivalence was created n pushed BY a monsanto man who used the revolving govvy door to do so
theyve just found the the CRISPR cas9 tech HAS unintended DNA changes
and that was touted as super precise better then genespliced gmo work
added to that is actaul testing done on weownit gmo varieties of corn found that the supposed “inplace” patented changed genes had moved all over the shop in the seed
so if its NOT exactly where they said it was n patented it as safe
do they “own” it at all?
and who the hell knows what effects of eating it are?
eg in aus of a lousy 12week feed trial and no autopsy available got gmsoy feed allowed here, ridiculous!
the Bt materials been found in soils n stubble so it hangs round too.
theres simply NO need for this muck over natural bred varieties and a huge extra cost to farmers forces prices up for all of us as well as the massive INcrease in chem used
How do CRISPR Cas9 changes or natural bred changes in the DNA have any effect on people who eat the food? Explain this magical theory?
Bt exists in nature – it is a natural product, found in soil and caterpillar guts. Of course you’ll find it in soils and stubbles.
Here is a nice little intro to what it is and the history of its use
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3035146/
“Photos like this are so obviously faked because nearly all these plastic objects could have been passed through an albatross’s digestive tract.”
Typo – missing “not”?
No, birds can pass plastics, rocks, bits of wood, glass, lots of things, through their digestive tracts. Look it up. And look up how eggs are formed and where they pass while you are at it – the compare the relative size of an egg to that debris shown in the photo above (which, BTW, appears amazingly clean and fresh for having been eaten and then subjected to the decay process of the dead bird.)
Oregon wind turbine ignites 2000 acre wildfire.
https://amp.kptv.com/story/38803146/wind-turbine-caught-on-fire-in-arlington
Photo of fire burning 1 of 2 railroad trestles.
https://katu.com/news/local/wind-turbine-sparks-fire-in-arlington
A little update:
the Bigelow (wiki below), project is located near the current wind turbine fire mentioned here: Note mention of substation fire in article….
https://amp.kptv.com/story/38803146/wind-turbine-caught-on-fire-in-arlington
Nearby is the substation that connects it to the grid. About 2 weeks ago the ‘Substation fire’ burned over 50,000 acres, homes were lost and at 1 fatality reported.
https://www.opb.org/news/article/crops-reported-substation-fire-boundary/
This is still ‘under investigation’.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biglow_Canyon_Wind_Farm
The inciweb site shows both fires.
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5963/
The substation, solely servicing the wind plants is located exactly just SW of the current turbine fire. (About 12-14 miles). Thus, the fire was named substation fire.
The prevaling winds spread the fore SE-SSE which consumed 78,000 acres.
This could be the largest wind energy related fire to date.
Too much doom & gloom caused by paranoid people caused by something they ate – which is also a psychoactive substance (makes you feel good) but comes at a cost (is a chemical depressant) which when used over the long-term brings on paranoia.
Now there’s a shocker – Cause & Effect the right way round for a change.
Sod it, let’s not waste this lovely Climate Change…
See you here https://www.awamutogether.co.uk/
Now if you can. Just off the J5 of the M40
Sound track to warm you up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oqUDtG7shk
Sums up Climate Science I’d suggest – Heartache by Numbers yet I dedicate to the buffalo:
“I live for the moment
I long for the day
You walk in my garden
You lie in my shade”
Or should that be for Sarah in Seattle – how’s that little sugar-bun keeping these days….
Not easy this sciencey stuff is it…….
Peta of Newark
Sorry but this self serving Kumbaya festival is part of the problem in places like Kampala.
My late father in law was a UN forester shortly after the UN was formed, in other words, when it actually meant something.
He was scathing of things like Band Aid because barely single digit percentages of the money raised would find it’s way past the developing worlds bureaucrats and their criminal connections. He said that less than 50% of UN aid reached the people it was intended for and that was with the might of the international community behind it.
What these events do is tip 90% of the proceeds into the black market, which predates on the few lucky enough to get the remaining 10%, for that 10%.
The cedars of Lebanon have been predated for millennia.
Pharaoh Smendes I bought cedar wood from King Tjekerbaal in the 10th century bc (see report of Wenamun). And King Solomon bought cedar from ‘King Hiram’ to build his temple, again in the 10th century bc.
Since these cedars take about 500 years to grow to a decent size, any predation since the 17th century will not have been replaced yet. And I imagine Lebanese cedar was highly prized during the wealthy industrial revoIution.
R
It is really puzzling how seldom any attention is given to cost/benefit considerations in these discussions.
The farmed salmon bit did mention the possibility of less fishing pressure on wild salmon, but no mention of a larger more reliable food supply.
The benefits of GMO are so vast and overriding to both the producer and the consumer that there is no cost associated with it (real or imagined) worth considering.
So far we have seen virtually no cost of higher CO2 but substantial benefits.
If average temperatures are actually climbing there are virtually no costs that can be shown without resorting to the type of reporting talked about by Mr. Moore. If you have not experienced benefits you must live on another planet.
If the natural environment is the concern then every effort should be made to reduce our footprint on the earth. In other words, decrease the expansion of agricultural land use by increasing yields through GMO, CO2 fertilization, and technology of any sort.
Fish farming is an excellent way to reduce the decimation of wild fish stocks.
I am certain you can think of many other ways that technology is of benefit to both mankind and the “natural” environment.
rockyredneck
Great post.
The scare tactics work because people are extremely bad as estimating risk. Offer a plausible scenario and risk can be over-estimated quite easily. It works in the other direction as well. Risk-takers have no problem rationalizing the danger away because they reason they will be careful so the tragedy won’t happen to them.
And interesting ‘essay’ that you will likely find worth your while to read.
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/what-does-scientific-consensus-mean-618f93c4513b
An excerpt:
When it comes to our everyday lives, “consensus” is a loaded word, perhaps even one of the most dangerous ones out there. To an individual with a working mind, the fact that most people — even if it’s the overwhelming majority of intelligent, informed people — believe in something shouldn’t shape your opinion at all.
Because part of having a working mind means having the confidence to gather, synthesize and draw conclusions from the information you can access yourself. It’s one of the most valuable things we can do as human beings.
ThomasJK
Concencus is a great term for keeping people poor. Those who conform follow the herd and simply do what they are told for a dollar a day.
Scepticism, on the other hand, means being an early adopter, a risk taker, an optimist. A path fraught with risk but also with immense profit.
Ever wondered why it’s largely the left that conform to the concencus?
Is this sentence above correct? “No mention is made of the fact that the US Geological Service estimates that volcanic activity produces less than one percent of the CO2 emissions produced from human use of fossil fuels,20” isn’t it the other way around?
Great article Dr. Moore!
Except;
Whenever a government agency, or other active participant starts their claims using “estimates”, it is not credible. Government estimates are assemblages of what is believed known (estimated), with assumptions regarding production and usage, and should never be used as “data”. Without certification and verification, estimates are worse than useless.
Neither USGS nor any other agency, organization, whatever has rigorously or seriously attempted to measure volcanic emissions so that any credible estimates can be made.
Meaning, that the “less than one percent” estimate was made by some desk jockey working without firm numbers, exhaustive research, definitive analyses; thus generating an estimate worth less than that “less than one percent”.
USGS’s desk jockey fails to consider that gas emissions are not solely concentrated at certain vents or volcano outlets, but are possible along the entirety of volcanic arcs, indeed along many other faults believed quiescent and ignored. e.g. Visit any natural hot spring and take note of venting gases.
e.g. 1) “Yellowstone-Park-emits-tons-of-carbon-dioxide-study-finds”
At 9.6 GT of mankind CO₂ emissions per year, Yellowstone alone rates 0.46% of man’s annual emissions. Geological CO₂ emissions occur 24/7/365
Not to forget that mankind’s CO₂’s emissions, is itself an estimate that obfuscates where a few reasonably accurate country estimates are summed along with horrendously poor accuracy country estimates.
Which amounts to comparing a very spotty, poorly understood, badly assembled estimate to another poorly assembled gross assumptions estimate.
i.e. useless at all levels.
I could see a possible problem if you were trying to procreate with a GMO, but ingesting it ? Please.
Most GMO claims are as useless as … “Everyone who eats tomatoes is going to die”
If there were no military objection or terrorist threat, nuclear would be the dreamed of solution. Alas there is a security issue and, compared to renewable energy, hardly any money has been spent on developing a new generation.
Dr Moore, the link for note 20 duplicates the link for note 19 and does not give your intended USGS reference.
Here is another report on the after effects of Chernobyl, supporting the argument that the “precautionary principle’ and the concept of no safe lower threshold for exposure to radioactivity have been misapplied: http://21sci-tech.com/Articles_2010/Summer_2010/Observations_Chernobyl.pdf It supports the concept of hormesis, analogous to vaccination, whereby a small amount of antigen stimulates a protective response, exposure to small quantities of ionizing radiation stimulates the DNA repair mechanisms within our cells. The ‘precautionary’ contention that if a radiation dose that would be fatal to a single individual is instead distributed over 10 individuals, one of them will sicken and perish, has been the basis for the outlandish prediction of massive death counts from the massive release of radiation from Chernobyl. This contention should have been recognized as faulty from day 1 as the ‘danger is the in dose’ principle has been long recognized. Two bottles of hard liquor shared among 10 men is a recipe for a good time, but consumed by one man is a probable prescription for death.
While I’m not an expert on GMOs, that section of this otherwise pretty reasonable article has multiple problems. Citing the FDA as a reliable source is even worse than citing NASA/NOAA or Wikipedia as a reliable source. Also, saying there “is no evidence” raises the alarm bell for an “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” situation. There are other confounders as well such as the frequent coupling of GMOs with herbicides, the concentration of GMOs in products (wheat/corn/soybeans) that seem to create health problems for many people for reasons unrelated to GMOs, and the overall poor health of modern populations for a variety of reasons likely unrelated to GMOs.
So the best answer is probably ”we don’t know” and until there have been well-designed long-term studies conducted that is likely to remain the case. If anyone is aware of such a study, I’m all eyes.
FWIW the World Health Organization states:
“GM foods currently available on the international market have passed safety assessments and are not likely to present risks for human health. In addition, no effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved.”
Are you implying that the WHO is not a joke?
The main reason we “know” GM foods are safe is there is nothing in them that could possibly cause harm. The whole anti-GM movement is based on absolutely nothing. There is no Devil or evil monster in the GM seeds or plants.
we “know” GM foods are safe is there is nothing in them that could possibly cause harm
…the kind of hubris that brings people undone.
Please state what you imagine to be in GM foods that is harmful.
Thanks.
Here’s an actual picture of the great pacific garbage dump showing a boatm trawling for plastic so a picture can be taken of it all in one lump.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=imgres&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiymOrk69PcAhVxFzQIHU_XCbEQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2018%2Fmar%2F22%2Fgreat-pacific-garbage-patch-sprawling-with-far-more-debris-than-thought&psig=AOvVaw3kzkK0aWIDXQ-l0u0YIzpn&ust=1533487377605736
From the link, “…nearly half of the weight of rubbish is composed of discarded fishing nets.” In fact, most of the garbage is fishing gear.
If you feel that plastic pollution in the seas is a problem, you need to target the actual source. Fight for biodegradable nets and other gear. Greens targeting plastic bags and straws are either ignorant, or fishing for money.
There is only a graphic of the fake sea of garbage. There is no arial or satellite photo of it. It does not exist the size of France or Texas. What a joke.
Jim Whelan
No, it’s a random picture of a fishing net full of crap. No evidence it has anything to do with the Pacific.
It’s also a picture of a boat in a blue ocean towing something. We have no idea where that shot is from.
This is a Guardian article. A failing, sensationalist, left wing media that has to beg it’s readership for money because no one would actually buy a copy.
Seriously, get a grip.
For a properly designed scientific study, the items to be observed are the ones called “sampling units.” Climatologists make the sampling units of their studies disappear through failure to tell us what they are! Consequently, the claims that are made by climatological models characteristically lack the property of falsifiability.
“Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it …” Jonathan Swift, 1710