This is just ridiculous. I have nothing to say. Read the original here.
Climate Fund Seeks UN-Style Diplomatic Immunity
Updated: Thursday, 22 Mar 2012, 4:42 PM MST
Published : Thursday, 22 Mar 2012, 4:42 PM MST
(FOX News) - The Green Climate Fund, which is supposed to help mobilize as much as $100 billion a year to lower global greenhouse gases, is seeking a broad blanket of UN-style immunity that would shield its operations from any kind of legal process, including civil and criminal prosecution, in the countries where it operates.
There is just one problem: it is not part of the United Nations.
Whether the fund, which was formally created at a UN climate conference in Durban, South Africa last December, will get all the money it wants to spend is open to question in an era of economic slowdown and fiscal austerity.
Its spending goal comes atop some $30 billion in "fast start-up" money that has been pledged by UN member states to such climate change activities.
A 24-nation interim board of trustees for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) is slated to hold its first meeting next month in Switzerland to organize the fund's secretariat and to get it running by November, as well as find a permanent home for the GCF's operations.
The board expects to spend about $6.7 million between now and June of next year.
But before it is fully operational, the GCF's creators -- 194 countries that belong to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) -- want it to be immune from legal challenges and lawsuits, not to mention outside inspections, much like the United Nations itself cannot be affected by decisions rendered by a sovereign nation's government or judicial system.
Despite its name, the UNFCCC was informed in 2006 by the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs that it was not considered a UN "organ," and therefore could not claim immunity for its subordinate bodies or personnel under the General Convention that has authorized UN immunity since the end of World War II.
A UNFCCC resolution granting similar immunities would need to be "accepted, approved or ratified" by each individual member of the Kyoto Protocol before it took effect, the UN legal office advised.
Even if UNFCCC members decided to ask the UN General Assembly to grant them similar immunity it would require each UN member state to make changes in domestic legislation, the opinion declared.
According to an official of the US Treasury, which strongly supports the existence of the GCF, the full extent of the immunities still remains to be worked out by the fund board, although the wording of various UNFCCC resolutions indicate that immunities like those held by the UN are clearly envisaged.
Read more: FOX News
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2012
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
More investigations into the science of Global Warming
Read the original here.
APNewsBreak: Arctic scientist under investigation
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Just five years ago, Charles Monnett was one of the scientists whose observation that several polar bears had drowned in the Arctic Ocean helped galvanize the global warming movement.
Now, the wildlife biologist is on administrative leave and facing accusations of scientific misconduct.
The federal agency where he works told him he's being investigated for "integrity issues," but a watchdog group believes it has to do with the 2006 journal article about the bear.
The group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, filed a complaint on his behalf Thursday with the agency, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
Investigators have not yet told Monnett of the specific charges or questions related to the scientific integrity of his work, said Jeff Ruch, the watchdog group's executive director.
A BOEMRE spokeswoman, Melissa Schwartz, said there was an "ongoing internal investigation" but declined to get into specifics.
Whatever the outcome, the investigation comes at a time when climate change activists and those who are skeptical about global warming are battling over the credibility of scientists' work.
Members of both sides, however, said that it was too early to make any pronouncements about the case, particularly since the agency has not yet released the details of the allegations against him.
Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the case reinforces the group's position that people should be more skeptical about the work of climate change scientists.
Even if every scientist is objective, "what we're being asked to do is turn our economy around and spend trillions and trillions of dollars on the basis of" climate change claims, he said.
Francesca Grifo, director of the scientific integrity program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said she's not alarmed by the handling of the case so far.
Grifo said the allegations made in the complaint filed by Ruch's group are premature and said people should wait to see what, if anything, comes of the inspector general's investigation.
Beyond the climate change debate, the investigation also focuses attention on an Obama administration policy intended to protect scientists from political interference.
The complaint seeks Monnett's reinstatement and a public apology from the agency and inspector general, whose office is conducting the probe.
The group's filing also seeks to have the investigation dropped or to have the charges specified and the matter carried out quickly and fairly, as the Obama policy states.
BOEMRE, which oversees leasing and development of offshore drilling, was created last year in the reorganization of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which oversaw offshore drilling.
The MMS was abolished after the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The agency was accused of being too close to oil and gas industry interests. A congressional report last year found MMS Alaska was vulnerable to lawsuits and allegations of scientific misconduct.
The agency announced steps to improve.
On July 18, BOEMRE told the longtime Anchorage-based Monnett that he was being put on leave, pending the investigation, according to the complaint. BOEMRE has barred Monnett from speaking to reporters, Ruch said.
Monnett could not immediately be reached Thursday.
His wife, Lisa Rotterman, a fellow scientist who worked with Monnett for years, including at BOEMRE's predecessor agency, said the case did not come out of the blue.
Rotterman said Monnett had come under fire in the past within the agency for speaking the truth about what the science showed. She said the 2006 article wasn't framed in the context of climate change but was relevant to the topic.
She feared what happened to Monnett would send a "chilling message" at the agency just as important oil and gas development decisions in the Arctic will soon be made.
"I don't believe the timing is coincidental," she said.
Rotterman said Monnett's work included identifying questions that needed to be answered to inform the environmental analyses the agency must conduct before issuing drilling permits.
"This is a time when sowing doubt in the public's mind about whether those findings can be trusted or not, that makes people think, I don't know what to believe," she said.
Monnett coordinated much of BOEMRE's research on Arctic wildlife and ecology, had duties that included managing about $50 million worth of studies, according to the complaint.
Schwartz, based in Washington, D.C., said other agency scientists would manage the studies in his absence.
According to documents provided by Ruch's group, which sat in on investigators' interviews with Monnett, the questioning focused on observations that he and researcher Jeffrey Gleason made in 2004.
At the time, they were conducting an aerial survey of bowhead whales, and saw four dead polar bears floating in the water after a storm. There were other witnesses, according to Ruch, and low-resolution photos show floating white blobs.
Monnett and Gleason detailed their observations in an article published two years later in the journal Polar Biology. In the peer-reviewed article, they said they were reporting, to the best of their knowledge, the first observations of the bears floating dead and presumed drowned while apparently swimming long distances.
Polar bears are considered strong swimmers, they wrote, but long-distance swims may exact a greater metabolic toll than standing or walking on ice in better weather.
They said their observations suggested the bears drowned in rough seas and high winds. They also added that the findings "suggest that drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods continues."
The article and presentations drew national attention and helped make the polar bear a symbol for the global warming movement. Former vice president and climate change activist Al Gore mentioned the animal in his Oscar-winning global warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."
The complaint said agency officials harassed Gleason and Monnett, and that they received negative comments after the journal article. Gleason took another Interior Department job; he didn't respond to an email and a BOEMRE spokeswoman said he wouldn't be available for comment.
In May 2008, the bear was classified as a threatened species, the first with its survival at risk due to global warming.
According to a transcript, provided by Ruch's group, Ruch asked investigator Eric May, during questioning of Monnett in February, for specifics about the allegations. May replied: "well, scientific misconduct, basically, uh, wrong numbers, uh, miscalculations."
Monnett said that alleging scientific misconduct "suggests that we did something deliberately to deceive or to, to change it. Um, I sure don't see any indication of that in what you're asking me about."
APNewsBreak: Arctic scientist under investigation
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Just five years ago, Charles Monnett was one of the scientists whose observation that several polar bears had drowned in the Arctic Ocean helped galvanize the global warming movement.
Now, the wildlife biologist is on administrative leave and facing accusations of scientific misconduct.
The federal agency where he works told him he's being investigated for "integrity issues," but a watchdog group believes it has to do with the 2006 journal article about the bear.
The group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, filed a complaint on his behalf Thursday with the agency, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.
Investigators have not yet told Monnett of the specific charges or questions related to the scientific integrity of his work, said Jeff Ruch, the watchdog group's executive director.
A BOEMRE spokeswoman, Melissa Schwartz, said there was an "ongoing internal investigation" but declined to get into specifics.
Whatever the outcome, the investigation comes at a time when climate change activists and those who are skeptical about global warming are battling over the credibility of scientists' work.
Members of both sides, however, said that it was too early to make any pronouncements about the case, particularly since the agency has not yet released the details of the allegations against him.
Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the case reinforces the group's position that people should be more skeptical about the work of climate change scientists.
Even if every scientist is objective, "what we're being asked to do is turn our economy around and spend trillions and trillions of dollars on the basis of" climate change claims, he said.
Francesca Grifo, director of the scientific integrity program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said she's not alarmed by the handling of the case so far.
Grifo said the allegations made in the complaint filed by Ruch's group are premature and said people should wait to see what, if anything, comes of the inspector general's investigation.
Beyond the climate change debate, the investigation also focuses attention on an Obama administration policy intended to protect scientists from political interference.
The complaint seeks Monnett's reinstatement and a public apology from the agency and inspector general, whose office is conducting the probe.
The group's filing also seeks to have the investigation dropped or to have the charges specified and the matter carried out quickly and fairly, as the Obama policy states.
BOEMRE, which oversees leasing and development of offshore drilling, was created last year in the reorganization of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which oversaw offshore drilling.
The MMS was abolished after the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The agency was accused of being too close to oil and gas industry interests. A congressional report last year found MMS Alaska was vulnerable to lawsuits and allegations of scientific misconduct.
The agency announced steps to improve.
On July 18, BOEMRE told the longtime Anchorage-based Monnett that he was being put on leave, pending the investigation, according to the complaint. BOEMRE has barred Monnett from speaking to reporters, Ruch said.
Monnett could not immediately be reached Thursday.
His wife, Lisa Rotterman, a fellow scientist who worked with Monnett for years, including at BOEMRE's predecessor agency, said the case did not come out of the blue.
Rotterman said Monnett had come under fire in the past within the agency for speaking the truth about what the science showed. She said the 2006 article wasn't framed in the context of climate change but was relevant to the topic.
She feared what happened to Monnett would send a "chilling message" at the agency just as important oil and gas development decisions in the Arctic will soon be made.
"I don't believe the timing is coincidental," she said.
Rotterman said Monnett's work included identifying questions that needed to be answered to inform the environmental analyses the agency must conduct before issuing drilling permits.
"This is a time when sowing doubt in the public's mind about whether those findings can be trusted or not, that makes people think, I don't know what to believe," she said.
Monnett coordinated much of BOEMRE's research on Arctic wildlife and ecology, had duties that included managing about $50 million worth of studies, according to the complaint.
Schwartz, based in Washington, D.C., said other agency scientists would manage the studies in his absence.
According to documents provided by Ruch's group, which sat in on investigators' interviews with Monnett, the questioning focused on observations that he and researcher Jeffrey Gleason made in 2004.
At the time, they were conducting an aerial survey of bowhead whales, and saw four dead polar bears floating in the water after a storm. There were other witnesses, according to Ruch, and low-resolution photos show floating white blobs.
Monnett and Gleason detailed their observations in an article published two years later in the journal Polar Biology. In the peer-reviewed article, they said they were reporting, to the best of their knowledge, the first observations of the bears floating dead and presumed drowned while apparently swimming long distances.
Polar bears are considered strong swimmers, they wrote, but long-distance swims may exact a greater metabolic toll than standing or walking on ice in better weather.
They said their observations suggested the bears drowned in rough seas and high winds. They also added that the findings "suggest that drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods continues."
The article and presentations drew national attention and helped make the polar bear a symbol for the global warming movement. Former vice president and climate change activist Al Gore mentioned the animal in his Oscar-winning global warming documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."
The complaint said agency officials harassed Gleason and Monnett, and that they received negative comments after the journal article. Gleason took another Interior Department job; he didn't respond to an email and a BOEMRE spokeswoman said he wouldn't be available for comment.
In May 2008, the bear was classified as a threatened species, the first with its survival at risk due to global warming.
According to a transcript, provided by Ruch's group, Ruch asked investigator Eric May, during questioning of Monnett in February, for specifics about the allegations. May replied: "well, scientific misconduct, basically, uh, wrong numbers, uh, miscalculations."
Monnett said that alleging scientific misconduct "suggests that we did something deliberately to deceive or to, to change it. Um, I sure don't see any indication of that in what you're asking me about."
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Science and sharing information
Dear Sir Paul Nurse, nobel laureate. #1, I'm sure throughout history, the one thing that has propelled science forward is the hoarding and hiding of information. God forbid, people want to know what drives your conclusions. #2. I'm sure that organised campaigns for request of data is unheard of in science. #3. I'm sure there's no curiosity as to the data being used after it has been found that data has been falsified in the past regarding these issues? Read the original here.
Freedom Of Information Laws Are Used To Harass Scientists, Says Nobel Laureate | Politics
Sir Paul Nurse, who won the Nobel prize for medicine in 2001, says information laws are being abused to intimidate scientists.
Freedom Of Information Laws Are Used To Harass Scientists, Says Nobel Laureate | Politics
Sir Paul Nurse, who won the Nobel prize for medicine in 2001, says information laws are being abused to intimidate scientists.
Freedom of information[1] laws are being misused to harass scientists and should be re-examined by the government, according to the president of the Royal Society[2].
Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse[3] told the Guardian that some climate scientists were being targeted by organised campaigns of requests for data and other research materials, aimed at intimidating them and slowing down research. He said the behaviour was turning freedom of information laws into a way to intimidate some scientists.
Nurse's comments follow the launch of a major Royal Society study[4] into how scientists' work can be made more open and better used to inform policy in society. The review – expected to be published next year – will examine ways of improving access to scientific data and research papers and how "digital media offer a powerful means for the public to interrogate, question and re-analyse scientific priorities, evidence and conclusions".
Nurse said that, in principle, scientific information should be made available as widely as possible as a matter of course, a practice common in biological research where gene sequences are routinely published in public databases. But he said freedom of information had "opened a Pandora's box. It's released something that we hadn't imagined ... there have been cases of it being misused in the climate change[5]debate to intimidate scientists.
"I have been told of some researchers who are getting lots of requests for, among other things, all drafts of scientific papers prior to their publication in journals, with annotations, explaining why changes were made between successive versions. If it is true, it will consume a huge amount of time. And it's intimidating."
It was possible some requests were designed simply to stop scientists working rather than as a legitimate attempt to get research data, said Nurse. "It is essential that scientists are as open and transparent as possible and, where they are not, they should be held to account. But at times this appears to be being used as a tool to stop scientists doing their work. That's going to turn us into glue. We are just not going to be able to operate efficiently."
Nurse said the government should examine the issue, and think about tweaking freedom of information legislation to recognise potential misuse. Otherwise, he predicted, FoI aggression could be in future used by campaigners to cripple scientific research in many other controversial areas of science, such as genetically modified crops. "I don't actually know the answer but I think we have a problem here. We need better guidelines about when the use of freedom of information is useful."
Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics said the intention of many of those making freedom of information requests was to trawl through scientists' work with the intention of trying to find problems and errors. "It's also quite true that these people do not care about the fact that it is causing a serious inconvenience," he said. "It is being used in an aggressive and organised way. When freedom of information legislation was first contemplated, it was not being considered that universities would be landed with this additional burden."
Evidence of the aggression first began to emerge when personal emails and documents were stolen from the University of East Anglia[6]'s (UEA) servers in November 2009 and leaked on to the internet. Climate sceptics seized on the contents as evidence that apparently showed scientists were colluding to keep errors in their research hidden and prevent rivals' research from being published at all.
In an independent inquiry a year later, the scientists at the UEA's climatic research unit (CRU) were cleared of any misconduct[7], but Muir Russell, the former civil servant who led the investigation, found a "consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness", although he stressed he had no reason to doubt the CRU team's honesty or integrity.
"The current fog of ambiguity concerning, for example, drafts of research papers produced in other countries is deeply damaging to our scientific standing," said Tom Ward, pro vice-chancellor at UEA. "Part of the discussion should be informed by what we can learn from Scottish and US law, which explicitly recognise the need to extend some protection to research in progress."
Myles Allen, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford, said he has been involved in many long-running exchanges with people making freedom of information requests for his data. "In the case that went on the longest, I answered all the guy's questions. I spent half a day writing a long email explaining the answers to all his questions, but it wasn't really that which he was after: he was after some procedural questions about IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]. He wanted some evidence that an IPCC statement had been changed – it wasn't about science at all; it was about procedure."
He added: "I can see what someone with a very specific political comment might gain from an unguarded comment, but it's very hard to see how science or public understanding of science gains from every exchange between scientists being made public. No other discipline operates in that way. The net effect of this, incidentally, is that senior people in government and senior scientists close to government are basically just using the telephone again. Which is very bad for science because email exchanges are an extremely useful record."
Nurse said that scientists were not blameless. At the University of East Anglia, they were too defensive in their responses to freedom of information requests over climate change, but their experience was one among many that highlighted a need for better training for scientists in the most appropriate way to respond to information requests.
Ward agreed that most universities do not have a very good grasp of the requirements of freedom of information law. But he added that researchers should be able to have confidential conversations with colleagues and researchers in other universities, and that it was increasingly difficult for researchers to do that by email.
"There's no other walk of life where every conversation you have ought to be made public," he said. "There's a massive double standards because a lot of the people submitting these requests are themselves not transparent at all. They don't reveal their sources of funding or the details of what they're doing behind the scenes."
He added that the best way for scientists to respond was with more openness. "Scientists are going to have to get used to the idea that transparency means being transparent to your critics as well as your allies. You cannot pick and choose to whom you are transparent," he said. "Increasingly it is going to be an issue for anyone working in contentious areas. Part of retaining the public's confidence and trust is transparency and openness, and scientists should accept that that is part of the price of having the people's trust."
References
^ More from guardian.co.uk on Freedom of information (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ More from guardian.co.uk on Royal Society (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ a major Royal Society study (royalsociety.org)
^ More from guardian.co.uk on Climate change (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ More from guardian.co.uk on University of East Anglia (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ cleared of any misconduct (www.guardian.co.uk)
Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse[3] told the Guardian that some climate scientists were being targeted by organised campaigns of requests for data and other research materials, aimed at intimidating them and slowing down research. He said the behaviour was turning freedom of information laws into a way to intimidate some scientists.
Nurse's comments follow the launch of a major Royal Society study[4] into how scientists' work can be made more open and better used to inform policy in society. The review – expected to be published next year – will examine ways of improving access to scientific data and research papers and how "digital media offer a powerful means for the public to interrogate, question and re-analyse scientific priorities, evidence and conclusions".
Nurse said that, in principle, scientific information should be made available as widely as possible as a matter of course, a practice common in biological research where gene sequences are routinely published in public databases. But he said freedom of information had "opened a Pandora's box. It's released something that we hadn't imagined ... there have been cases of it being misused in the climate change[5]debate to intimidate scientists.
"I have been told of some researchers who are getting lots of requests for, among other things, all drafts of scientific papers prior to their publication in journals, with annotations, explaining why changes were made between successive versions. If it is true, it will consume a huge amount of time. And it's intimidating."
It was possible some requests were designed simply to stop scientists working rather than as a legitimate attempt to get research data, said Nurse. "It is essential that scientists are as open and transparent as possible and, where they are not, they should be held to account. But at times this appears to be being used as a tool to stop scientists doing their work. That's going to turn us into glue. We are just not going to be able to operate efficiently."
Nurse said the government should examine the issue, and think about tweaking freedom of information legislation to recognise potential misuse. Otherwise, he predicted, FoI aggression could be in future used by campaigners to cripple scientific research in many other controversial areas of science, such as genetically modified crops. "I don't actually know the answer but I think we have a problem here. We need better guidelines about when the use of freedom of information is useful."
Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics said the intention of many of those making freedom of information requests was to trawl through scientists' work with the intention of trying to find problems and errors. "It's also quite true that these people do not care about the fact that it is causing a serious inconvenience," he said. "It is being used in an aggressive and organised way. When freedom of information legislation was first contemplated, it was not being considered that universities would be landed with this additional burden."
Evidence of the aggression first began to emerge when personal emails and documents were stolen from the University of East Anglia[6]'s (UEA) servers in November 2009 and leaked on to the internet. Climate sceptics seized on the contents as evidence that apparently showed scientists were colluding to keep errors in their research hidden and prevent rivals' research from being published at all.
In an independent inquiry a year later, the scientists at the UEA's climatic research unit (CRU) were cleared of any misconduct[7], but Muir Russell, the former civil servant who led the investigation, found a "consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness", although he stressed he had no reason to doubt the CRU team's honesty or integrity.
"The current fog of ambiguity concerning, for example, drafts of research papers produced in other countries is deeply damaging to our scientific standing," said Tom Ward, pro vice-chancellor at UEA. "Part of the discussion should be informed by what we can learn from Scottish and US law, which explicitly recognise the need to extend some protection to research in progress."
Myles Allen, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford, said he has been involved in many long-running exchanges with people making freedom of information requests for his data. "In the case that went on the longest, I answered all the guy's questions. I spent half a day writing a long email explaining the answers to all his questions, but it wasn't really that which he was after: he was after some procedural questions about IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]. He wanted some evidence that an IPCC statement had been changed – it wasn't about science at all; it was about procedure."
He added: "I can see what someone with a very specific political comment might gain from an unguarded comment, but it's very hard to see how science or public understanding of science gains from every exchange between scientists being made public. No other discipline operates in that way. The net effect of this, incidentally, is that senior people in government and senior scientists close to government are basically just using the telephone again. Which is very bad for science because email exchanges are an extremely useful record."
Nurse said that scientists were not blameless. At the University of East Anglia, they were too defensive in their responses to freedom of information requests over climate change, but their experience was one among many that highlighted a need for better training for scientists in the most appropriate way to respond to information requests.
Ward agreed that most universities do not have a very good grasp of the requirements of freedom of information law. But he added that researchers should be able to have confidential conversations with colleagues and researchers in other universities, and that it was increasingly difficult for researchers to do that by email.
"There's no other walk of life where every conversation you have ought to be made public," he said. "There's a massive double standards because a lot of the people submitting these requests are themselves not transparent at all. They don't reveal their sources of funding or the details of what they're doing behind the scenes."
He added that the best way for scientists to respond was with more openness. "Scientists are going to have to get used to the idea that transparency means being transparent to your critics as well as your allies. You cannot pick and choose to whom you are transparent," he said. "Increasingly it is going to be an issue for anyone working in contentious areas. Part of retaining the public's confidence and trust is transparency and openness, and scientists should accept that that is part of the price of having the people's trust."
References
^ More from guardian.co.uk on Freedom of information (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ More from guardian.co.uk on Royal Society (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ a major Royal Society study (royalsociety.org)
^ More from guardian.co.uk on Climate change (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ More from guardian.co.uk on University of East Anglia (www.guardian.co.uk)
^ cleared of any misconduct (www.guardian.co.uk)
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Hippies do their hippie thing
Read the original here.
Nobel Laureates In Stockholm Climate 'Trial'
Published: 17 May 11 13:52 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation[1]
Updated: 17 May 11 16:18 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/33826/20110517/
Around 20 Nobel[2] prize winners will preside over a mock courtroom in Stockholm on Tuesday, with the Planet Earth and humanity on opposing sides of the case, as part of a symposium to highlight global sustainability.
"It's a civil court case to see whether we've breached our relations" with the planet, "and to see how to restore that relationship," symposium chair Johan Rockström told reporters at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The "trial" will be one of the sessions at the third biennial Nobel laureate symposium on global sustainability -- a three-day event that opened in the Swedish capital Tuesday.
In addition to the Nobel laureates, leading scientists and environmental research group heads were on site to draft a Stockholm Memorandum on the findings of the meeting, which will be presented Wednesday to the United High-level Panel on Global Sustainability.
Rockström explained that one of the sessions had been shaped as a trial since "we've come to the point where just another meeting with another dialogue would fail to have an impact (and to clearly) communicate ... the possibilities and challenges we are facing."
"History will in any case judge us," Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren told reporters, explaining the "trial" was actually about humanity judging itself with future generations in mind.
Mario Molina of Mexico, the winner of the 1995 Nobel Chemistry Prize who is a science and technology advisor to US President Barack Obama[3], told the news
conference he hoped rationality, common sense and wisdom would strengthen the
planet's case in the "symbolic" trial.
At the conference's inaugural speech, Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria stressed the urgency of acting to make the world a better place.
"Mankind faces tremendous challenges if we are to hand our future generations a healthier mother earth, ... a planet more sustainable than it was when we received it from our parents," the princess said in a speech inaugurating the symposium.
"I see no better persons than Nobel laureates to carry this message to the world," she told the delegates.
The princess and delegates were welcomed at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences by a tiny group of protesters.
"Manmade climate change is an unproven, unscientific political ideal... If we implement what these people are saying, billions of people are going to die of poverty," said protestor Hussein Askary
The Stockholm Memorandum will be considered by the UN panel, which was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon[4] and includes South Africa's
President Jacob Zuma and his Finnish counterpart Tarja Halonen and has been
tasked with putting together a "new vision" on sustainable growth.
The panel will draw up a report with suggestions before the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012.
References
^ translation (www.thelocal.se)
^ Nobel (www.thelocal.se)
^ Barack Obama (www.thelocal.se)
^ Ban Ki-moon (www.thelocal.se)
Nobel Laureates In Stockholm Climate 'Trial'
Published: 17 May 11 13:52 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation[1]
Updated: 17 May 11 16:18 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/33826/20110517/
Around 20 Nobel[2] prize winners will preside over a mock courtroom in Stockholm on Tuesday, with the Planet Earth and humanity on opposing sides of the case, as part of a symposium to highlight global sustainability.
"It's a civil court case to see whether we've breached our relations" with the planet, "and to see how to restore that relationship," symposium chair Johan Rockström told reporters at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The "trial" will be one of the sessions at the third biennial Nobel laureate symposium on global sustainability -- a three-day event that opened in the Swedish capital Tuesday.
In addition to the Nobel laureates, leading scientists and environmental research group heads were on site to draft a Stockholm Memorandum on the findings of the meeting, which will be presented Wednesday to the United High-level Panel on Global Sustainability.
Rockström explained that one of the sessions had been shaped as a trial since "we've come to the point where just another meeting with another dialogue would fail to have an impact (and to clearly) communicate ... the possibilities and challenges we are facing."
"History will in any case judge us," Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren told reporters, explaining the "trial" was actually about humanity judging itself with future generations in mind.
Mario Molina of Mexico, the winner of the 1995 Nobel Chemistry Prize who is a science and technology advisor to US President Barack Obama[3], told the news
conference he hoped rationality, common sense and wisdom would strengthen the
planet's case in the "symbolic" trial.
At the conference's inaugural speech, Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria stressed the urgency of acting to make the world a better place.
"Mankind faces tremendous challenges if we are to hand our future generations a healthier mother earth, ... a planet more sustainable than it was when we received it from our parents," the princess said in a speech inaugurating the symposium.
"I see no better persons than Nobel laureates to carry this message to the world," she told the delegates.
The princess and delegates were welcomed at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences by a tiny group of protesters.
"Manmade climate change is an unproven, unscientific political ideal... If we implement what these people are saying, billions of people are going to die of poverty," said protestor Hussein Askary
The Stockholm Memorandum will be considered by the UN panel, which was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon[4] and includes South Africa's
President Jacob Zuma and his Finnish counterpart Tarja Halonen and has been
tasked with putting together a "new vision" on sustainable growth.
The panel will draw up a report with suggestions before the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012.
References
^ translation (www.thelocal.se)
^ Nobel (www.thelocal.se)
^ Barack Obama (www.thelocal.se)
^ Ban Ki-moon (www.thelocal.se)
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Politicians are supposed to be smart enough to lead?
Read the original here.
EU To Ban Cars From Cities By 2050
The Association of British Drivers rejected the proposal to ban cars as economically disastrous and as a "crazy" restriction on mobility.
"I suggest that he goes and finds himself a space in the local mental asylum," said Hugh Bladon, a spokesman for the BDA.
"If he wants to bring everywhere to a grinding halt and to plunge us into a new dark age, he is on the right track. We have to keep things moving. The man is off his rocker."
Mr Kallas has denied that the EU plan to cut car use by half over the next 20 years, before a total ban in 2050, will limit personal mobility or reduce Europe's economic competitiveness.
"Curbing mobility is not an option, neither is business as usual. We can break the transport system's dependence on oil without sacrificing its efficiency and compromising mobility. It can be win-win," he claimed.
Christopher Monckton, Ukip's transport spokesman said: "The EU must be living in an alternate reality, where they can spend trillions and ban people from their cars.
"This sort of greenwashing grandstanding adds nothing and merely highlights their grandiose ambitions."
EU To Ban Cars From Cities By 2050
The Association of British Drivers rejected the proposal to ban cars as economically disastrous and as a "crazy" restriction on mobility.
"I suggest that he goes and finds himself a space in the local mental asylum," said Hugh Bladon, a spokesman for the BDA.
"If he wants to bring everywhere to a grinding halt and to plunge us into a new dark age, he is on the right track. We have to keep things moving. The man is off his rocker."
Mr Kallas has denied that the EU plan to cut car use by half over the next 20 years, before a total ban in 2050, will limit personal mobility or reduce Europe's economic competitiveness.
"Curbing mobility is not an option, neither is business as usual. We can break the transport system's dependence on oil without sacrificing its efficiency and compromising mobility. It can be win-win," he claimed.
Christopher Monckton, Ukip's transport spokesman said: "The EU must be living in an alternate reality, where they can spend trillions and ban people from their cars.
"This sort of greenwashing grandstanding adds nothing and merely highlights their grandiose ambitions."
Thursday, December 6, 2007
What happened to fighting global warming?
This is why I hate the 'environmental' lobby: so-called environmental groups in Texas are desperately trying to derail the construction of wind farms. Too many environmentalists are just using environmental issues to try to push an anti-corporate, anti-capitalist agenda.
Coalition sues Land Office over wind farms
Groups, including King Ranch, want to require extensive environmental review of wind projects
The Austin American-StatesmanThe famed King Ranch and a coalition of environmental groups sued Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson in federal court Tuesday, seeking to require extensive environmental review and public comment on two planned wind power projects along the Gulf Coast in Kenedy County.
The coalition, the Coastal Habitat Alliance, also sued over the wind project in state District Court in Travis County. That suit claims that the state's Public Utility Commission illegally denied the alliance's request to participate in permit hearings for the wind project's transmission time.
The lawsuits threaten to delay or stop the two massive wind projects, which could place more than 600 turbines on 60,000 acres near Laguna Madre, south of Corpus Christi. Part of the wind projects would place about 250 turbines just east of a portion of the sprawling King Ranch.
The federal suit, filed in U.S. Western District Court in Austin, said the turbines could kill untold numbers of migratory birds and damage the bay. It seeks to overturn the decision by the Texas General Land Office, which Patterson heads, to allow the projects to be built without environmental review or input fro the public. The suit contends that the Federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 and the Texas Coastal Management Program require a permit process for an energy generation facility on the coast, including wind farms.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
TMQ versus Al Gore
Gregg Easterbrook, the Brookings Scholar and ESPN football writer, is a passionate environmentalist. Unlike many environmentalists, however, he is adamantly against the dishonesty, self-promotion, and hypocrisy with which many environmentalists treat their work. In today's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, he takes serious aim at Al Gore. It's well down the page if you want to read more. I'd strongly suggest doing so. His column is a great piece of writing and always worth a look.
Those Hollywood Searchlights Around Gore's Home Sure Eat Power
Tuesday Morning Quarterback for ESPNGore wasn't the first quack to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and history suggests he will not be the last. Gore spent eight years in the White House, and in that time took no meaningful action regarding greenhouse gases. The Clinton-Gore administration did not raise fuel economy standards for cars and trucks or propose domestic carbon trading. Though Clinton and Gore made a great show of praising the Kyoto Protocol, they refused even to submit the treaty to the Senate for consideration, let alone push for ratification. During his 2000 run for the presidency, Gore said little about climate change or binding global-warming reforms. In the White House and during his presidential campaign, Gore advocated no consequential action regarding greenhouse gases; then, there was a political cost attached. Once Gore was out of power and global-warming proposals no longer carried a political cost - indeed, could be used for self-promotion - suddenly Gore discovered his intense desire to demand that other leaders do what he had not! It is a triumph of postmodernism that Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for no specific accomplishment other than making a movie of self-praise. Gore caused no peace nor led to any reconciliation of belligerent parties nor performed any service to the dispossessed, the achievements the Peace Prize was created to honor. All Gore did was promote himself from Hollywood, and for this, he gets a Nobel. Very postmodern.
An annoying complication of Gore's Nobel is that few realize the award was given jointly to him and to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an organization well worthy of distinction. The IPCC is a group of scientists who have spent two decades studying climate change n obscurity, and in many cases without pay. The IPCC's efforts have been selfless, motivated only by concern for society. Had the Nobel Peace Prize gone solely to the IPCC, it would have been a great day.
An astonishing measure of how out-of-touch the Norwegian Nobel Committee seems is that it gave a prize to Gore for hectoring others about energy consumption in the same year it was revealed that Gore, at his home, uses 20 times the national power average. Gore's extraordinary power waste equates to about 377,000 pounds of greenhouse gases annually, or about 20 Hummer Years worth of global warming pollution. (A Hummer Year, TMQ's metric of environmental hypocrisy, is the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in a typical year of driving a Hummer). When his utility bill made the news - though apparently not in Oslo - Gore responded by saying he buys carbon offsets. That takes you back to the offset problem: All offsets do is prevent greenhouse gas accumulation from increasing. If you really believe there will be a global calamity unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced 80 percent, as Gore told the Live Earth crowd, you would not by carbon offsets and cut your own energy use. Instead, Gore flies around in fossil-fuel-intensive jet aircraft telling others: Do as I say, not as I do!
After news of Gore's personal energy consumption broke, Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider told The Associated Press the utility bill was justified because "Al and Tipper both work out of their home." This raises the question - what kind of work are they doing? Perhaps reanimating Frankenstein; in Frankenstein movies, there is always a lot of electricity crackling wastefully about. Here are other possible reasons the Gores' home requires so much energy:
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Dingell wants more money to "fight polution"
Rep. John Dingell is rolling out a new environmental plan. What's the plan? Raise taxes. Raise gas taxes, raise income taxes, raise energy taxes.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Rep. Dingell is trying to raise taxes. His goal here is not to protect the auto industry - he has, after all, gone on record as saying he is "committed to CAFE increases", which are tantamount to the Senate-proposed increases that would destroy the auto industry. Nor is his goal here to reduce CO2 production - there are ways to do this which represent minimal cost to consumers and, most particularly, the poor who would suffer under a regressive carbon tax. He can have the same effect with proposals which would be more cost effective:
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Rep. Dingell is trying to raise taxes. His goal here is not to protect the auto industry - he has, after all, gone on record as saying he is "committed to CAFE increases", which are tantamount to the Senate-proposed increases that would destroy the auto industry. Nor is his goal here to reduce CO2 production - there are ways to do this which represent minimal cost to consumers and, most particularly, the poor who would suffer under a regressive carbon tax. He can have the same effect with proposals which would be more cost effective:
- carpool lanes
- building codes that include rigorous standards for energy efficiency
- more efficient charging of household electronics (i.e. cell phones, batteries, laptops, etc.)
- replacement of incandescent light bulbs with compact florescent bulbs
- elimination of non-programmable thermostats
These programs and the long-term development of alternative energy will all have net cost savings, as well as promote energy efficiency and conservation of our natural resources.
Instead of taking a serious look at any of these programs, Rep. Dingell is simply trying to redirect more money away from consumers and toward the government. This should surprise no one, as Rep. Dingell makes no secret of his love of nearly every tax and his desire to raise them all. But raising taxes is not the best way to solve our pollution problems, and the sooner someone tells Rep. Dingell this fact, the better it will be for American taxpayers.Plan Uses Taxes to Fight Climate Change
The Washington PostWASHINGTON -- Dealing with global warming will be painful, says one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress. To back up his claim he is proposing a recipe many people won't like - a 50-cent gasoline tax, a carbon tax, and scaling back tax breaks for some home owners.
"I'm trying to have everybody understand that this is going to cost and that it's going to have a measure of pain that you're not going to like," Rep. John Dingell, who is marking his 52nd year in Congress, said Wednesday in an interview with the Associated Press.
Dingell will offer a "discussion draft" outlining his tax proposals on Thursday, the same day that President Bush holds a two-day conference to discuss voluntary efforts to combat climate change.
But Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that will craft climate legislation, is making it clear that he believes tackling global warming will require a lot more if it is to be taken seriously.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Hooray for Hollywood
Interesting article, but one problem: they suggest that driving a hybrid car can somehow save money. This is a fallacy. Most hybrids NEVER will save their owner money.
Hollywood Sending Mixed Climate Messages
Brietbart.comLOS ANGELES (AP) - From "green carpets" at awards shows to organic fruit served to actors on sets, Hollywood is going all out to promote itself as being environmentally hip. But is it all just show.
No amount of public service announcements or celebrities driving hybrid cars can mask the fact that movie and TV production is a pretty gritty industrial operation, consuming enormous amounts of power to feed bright lights, run sophisticated cameras, and feed a cast of thousands.
Studios' back lots host cavernous soundstages that must be air conditioned to counter the heat produced by decades-old lighting technology. Huge manufacturing facilities consume wood, steel, paint, and plastic to build sets that are often torn down and tossed out after filming ends.
The energy guzzling continues on the exhibition side, too, with multiplexes drawing millions of kilowatts to power old-school popcorn makers and clunky film projectors that cash-strapped theater owners are reluctant to replace.
A two-year study released last year by the University of California at Los Angeles concluded that special effects explosions, idling vehicles and diesel generators make the entertainment industry a major Southern California polluter, second only to the oil industry.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Subdued environmentalism - what's the world coming to?
From an ABC article about the Philadelphia Eagles, which are apparently an extremely environmentally friendly team but has wanted to avoid public accolades for their success:
"They've not been eager to trumpet this, because I know for a fact that they wanted to make sure that their nest was clean before talking about it much in public," said John Hanger of environmental group PennFuture. "They've been really concerned that if they were playing the role model, they were a real role model.
Okay, that's something I like to hear. I'm sick of the damn grand-standing, look-at-me, holier-than-thou attitudes by self-described "environmentalists" who are more concerned with how they're perceived than with what they do.
"They've not been eager to trumpet this, because I know for a fact that they wanted to make sure that their nest was clean before talking about it much in public," said John Hanger of environmental group PennFuture. "They've been really concerned that if they were playing the role model, they were a real role model.
Okay, that's something I like to hear. I'm sick of the damn grand-standing, look-at-me, holier-than-thou attitudes by self-described "environmentalists" who are more concerned with how they're perceived than with what they do.
NFL's Greenest Team - and Not Just the Uniform
ABC NewsIt's only a coincidence that the Philadelphia Eagles wear green jerseys.
The Eagles have quietly become the most environmentally friendly team in the National Football League, and perhaps in all of major league sports.
When the lights come on for an Eagles game at Lincoln Financial Field, 30 percent of the power comes from so-called clean sources, such as wind power and methane relcaimed from landfills.
When the Eagles fly to an away game, their organization plants trees in the Philadelphia area to make up for the carbon dioxide emitted by the team's plane.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Really? But I thought it was our fault!
I thought it was "global warming" that was supposed to wreck the world's weather...
La Nina threatens to wreck world's weather
The Times of LondonExperts predict a run of severe weather in the coming months, with devastating floods striking some parts of the world while severe droughts afflict other regions, as the climate phenomenon knows as La Niña gathers momentum.
A chronic drought afflicting southern California and many southeastern states of America could be exacerbated, with Los Angeles heading for its driest year on record. In contrast, western Canada and the northwestern US could turn colder and snowier. Mozambique, southeast Africa, and northern Brazil may face exceptionally heavy rains and floods, while southern Brazil and much of Argentina suffer drought.
La Niña could even rearrange the pattern of sea ice around the Antarctic, pushing the ice pack towards the Pacific side of the continent. Already, torrential rains have triggered severe floods across a huge swath of Central Africa, stretching from Senegal in the west to Uganda in the east.
Rupa Kumar Kolli, chief of world applications at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in Geneva, predicts that the worst of La Niña is yet to come. "This La Niña is now in its developing phase and getting stronger, and we can expect it to peak this coming December and January," he said. Whether this episode of La Niña will make itself felt in Britain and continental Europe this winter is not certain. "We tend to get a mild end to winter with La Niña, but it's not a strong signal," said Adam Scaife, at the Hadley Centre of the Met Office in Exeter.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Can we stop talking about Al Gore for President already?
I'm really getting sick of people and their whole "Al Gore for President" garbage. This is a many whose primary successes have come from his "environmental" stances and "successes". Of course, running on that would be suicide for him due to the ridiculous amount of hypocrisy. What do I mean?
- He's admitted to exaggeration in his "documentary," An Inconvenient Truth.
- He flies around the world in private jets to discuss global warming.
- He gets a paycheck from a company which he formed that claims to provide carbon credits but in reality doesn't do much for the environment.
- He lives in a 20,000 square foot house and has four-digit monthly utility bills.
- He drives an SUV in An Inconvenient Truth.
- Most notably, however, is that he never submitted the Kyoto accords to the Senate despite his position as President of the Senate.
How someone who lives such an extravagant, wasteful lifestyle and was against the Kyoto accords when he had an opportunity to do something about them could ever run on an environmental platform is completely and utterly beyond me.
Something odd...
It's odd that this article points out that the Arctic ice sheet is at its smallest levels while the Antarctic ice sheet is at its largest levels...
Leaders Gather for Climate Summit
ABC NewsRising global temperatures that are melting the Arctic and expanding the oceans are now drawing more than 80 world leaders to the U.N. podium for an unprecedented summit Monday on how to combat climate change.
From California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a champion of climate-saving legislation, the presidents and premiers will hear that even an often-reluctant United States is pitching in.
"California is moving the United States beyond debate and doubt to action," he says in remarks prepared for the meeting's morning kickoff.
Fellow opening speaker Rajendra Pachauri, chief U.N. climate scientist, says there's now "much greater evidence of human influence on climate change," and therefore "it's time for action."
Friday, September 21, 2007
Same old story...no clue on effects of climate change
From The Times UK: Climate Change may help rainforests.
Translation: We still don't know what global warming is going to do to anything. By all means, let's wreck the economy pursuing anti-capitalist agendas against the auto industry to fight global warming.
Translation: We still don't know what global warming is going to do to anything. By all means, let's wreck the economy pursuing anti-capitalist agendas against the auto industry to fight global warming.
Climate change may help rainforests
The Times UKClimate change may lead to lush growth rather than catastrophic tree loss in the Amazonian forests, researchers from the US and Brazil have found. A study, in the journal Science, found that reduced rainfall had led to greener forests, possibly because sunlight levels are higher when there are fewer rainclouds.
But scientists cautioned that while the finding raises hope for the survival of the forests, there are still serious threats. Climate models have suggested that the forests will suffer as the region becomes drier and will release huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Al Gore's (still more) hypocricy
They sold 700 seats costing between $1,000 and $25,000 a piece? Reasonably, it cost a total of $1 million for the entire event. Just to put that into perspective, that's about 1/9 of the money needed to build a 2.5MW wind turbine and all the applicable infrastructure. Alternately, that could have been used to give approximately 100 poor families solar energy. Also, the amount of CO2 which Al Gore's private jet had to spew to get him from Washington to Australia would combine to a ridiculous amount of extravagant ecological excess to get together to spew forth hot air about how people aren't doing enough to combat global warming.
Here's an idea - instead of giving obscene amounts of money to ridiculously wealthy jetsetter, why not just donate the money to a charity that builds wind and solar power generators? Nah, it's so much better to be flying around the would on private jets and begrudging the contractor an F-350 pickup so he can haul his three coworkers and about 500 pounds of equipment to the job site.
Here's an idea - instead of giving obscene amounts of money to ridiculously wealthy jetsetter, why not just donate the money to a charity that builds wind and solar power generators? Nah, it's so much better to be flying around the would on private jets and begrudging the contractor an F-350 pickup so he can haul his three coworkers and about 500 pounds of equipment to the job site.
Paying dearly to hear Gore's climate story
The Age (Australia)AL GORE has a story he wants to tell the world. But it will cost you a thousand dollars to hear it.
In a passionate attack on the climate policies of Prime Minister John Howard and US President George Bush, the former US vice-president, addressing a very expensive lunch in Sydney yesterday, called Australia and the US "the Bonnie and Clyde" outlaws of the global environment for their failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
Mr. Gore called on Australia to change course on Kyoto and its climate policies, saying if it did "it would be impossible for the United States to withstand the pressure" to join the rest of the world in ratifying Kyoto.
Labor under Kevin Rudd has promised to ratify the protocol while Mr. Howard is adamantly opposed to it and is backing Mr. Bush's efforts to find a "post-Kyoto accord."
Mr. Gore made his comments after reporters were asked to leave the lunch venue. Despite the cost, lunch in the 700-seat room at the Sydney Convention Centre was a sell-out, as is tomorrow's event in Melbourne. VIP packages, which included a spot close to Mr. Gore and a meet-and-greet with him, cost $25,000.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
"Human Energy?" Try "Exploitation of the Poor."
What a surprise - yet another carbon offsetting program turns out to be a sham. The U.K.'s largest carbon offsetting company, Climate Care, is apparently offsetting CO2 expenditures by suing the same sham tactics exposed by others: they pay the poor to use backbreaking manual labor instead of diesel power, plant trees already set to be planted, and upgrade stoves already set to be upgraded.
It should come to no one's surprise that the carbon offsetting programs largely consist of exploiting the poor so that the rich can feel good about their excesses. Why bother taking a crowded commercial flight when you can fly a private jet and pay some poor Indian villager to engage in backbreaking labor instead of using a more efficient diesel engine?
The most strikingly abhorrent issue with the whole project is definitely the use of manual pumps, "human energy" in Climate Care's terminology, is that instead of running a diesel pump for a couple of hours a month, these individuals are spending several hours a day on manual pumps - time which could be spent with one's family, educating oneself, learning new skills, or planting more fields. In short, "human energy" is sapping the poor's ability to live a more worthwhile life and to work their way up from poverty.
But, hey, as long as the rich, liberal elites can fly on a private jet across the world for a ridiculous publicity stunt instead of flying commercial or - god forbid - skipping the trip altogether, I guess it's all worthwhile.
It should come to no one's surprise that the carbon offsetting programs largely consist of exploiting the poor so that the rich can feel good about their excesses. Why bother taking a crowded commercial flight when you can fly a private jet and pay some poor Indian villager to engage in backbreaking labor instead of using a more efficient diesel engine?
The most strikingly abhorrent issue with the whole project is definitely the use of manual pumps, "human energy" in Climate Care's terminology, is that instead of running a diesel pump for a couple of hours a month, these individuals are spending several hours a day on manual pumps - time which could be spent with one's family, educating oneself, learning new skills, or planting more fields. In short, "human energy" is sapping the poor's ability to live a more worthwhile life and to work their way up from poverty.
But, hey, as long as the rich, liberal elites can fly on a private jet across the world for a ridiculous publicity stunt instead of flying commercial or - god forbid - skipping the trip altogether, I guess it's all worthwhile.
To cancel out the Co2 of a return flight to India, it will take one poor villager three years of pumping water by foot. So is carbon offsetting the best way to ease your conscience?
The London TimesWhen David Cameron flew to India to open a JCB factory for a party donor, green-thinking supporters could rest assured that his visit would be carbon neutral. "We are offsetting all our emissions through Climate Care," the Tory leader wrote on his blog. "As well as planting trees, they also invest in renewable energy projects in the developing world."
Somewhere in the Indian countryside, a farmer is about to repay Mr. Cameron's debt to the planet. Climate Care's latest enterprise is to provide "treadle pumps" to poor rural families so they can get water on to their land without using diesel power. The pumps are worked on by stepping on pedals. If a peasant treads for two hours a day, it will take at least three years to offset the CO2 from Mr. Cameron's return flight to India.
Climate Care, whose clients include the Prince of Wales, is the leading brand in the fast-expanding but unregulated field of offsetting, in which consumers pay to make good the energy they emit through travel or heating. Those businesses claim that they can negate pollution by planting trees or by paying for renewable power such as windmills or hydroelectrics.
Climate Care says that it has offset a million tonnes of carbon since it was founded ten years ago. It has just made the claim that it will sell enough offsets to neutralise 1 per cent of carbon emissions in Britain next year. But it was targeted last week by activists dressed as "red herrings", who delivered fish to its Oxford premises. "Climate Care are misleading the public, making them believe that offsetting does some good," said Joss Garman, a protester. "It's like being a member of the RSPCA then going home and kicking a dog."
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Quote of the Day
"Doing too little is obvious, but let's say it anyway. If you don't do something about global warming, of course it will become a bigger problem. So obviously we need to address it and in the long term fix it. On the other hand, doing too much about it means we are focusing too much effort on climate change and forgetting all the other things we have a responsibility to deal with, like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and malnutrition. If we spend too much time and resources focusing on climate change, then we do the future a disservice because we say, 'Hey, we fixed climate change but we let all the other things slide.'"
- Bjørn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist"
Monday, July 30, 2007
"We're not trying to silence anybody"
Once again, the Liberal Elite show their disdain for the right to free speech. As should surprise no one, Liberal activist groups are doing whatever they legally can to punish Fox News for the views of some of their editorialists. This time, they’re monitoring commercials and then contacting advertisers to try to get them to pull their funding. Of course, even though they’re trying to attack the funding source of the stations due to editorialist views of some of their personalities they are adamant that they’re “not trying to silence anybody”. Because, after all, trying to get ads pulled based on editorial content definitely isn’t “trying to silence anybody.
Home Depot Spokesman Jerry Shields seems to have the right attitude: "We're not in the business of censoring media."
Home Depot Spokesman Jerry Shields seems to have the right attitude: "We're not in the business of censoring media."
Liberals Going After Fox Advertisers
APNEW YORK (AP) - Liberal activists are stepping up their campaign against Fox News Channel by pressuring advertisers not to patronize the network.
MoveOn.org, the Campaign for America's Future and liberal blogs like DailyKos.com are asking thousands of supporters to monitor who is advertising on the network. Once a database is gathered, an organized phone-calling campaign will begin, said Jim Gilliam, vice president of media strategy for Brave New Films, a company that has made anti-Fox videos.
The groups have successfully pressured Democratic presidential candidates not to appear at any debate sponsored by Fox, and are also trying to get Home Depot Inc. to stop advertising there.
At least 5,000 people nationwide have signed up to compile logs on who is running commercials on Fox, Gilliam said. The groups want to first concentrate on businesses running local ads, as opposed to national commercials.
"It's a lot more effective for Sam's Diner to get calls from 10 people in his town than going to the consumer complaint department of some pharmaceutical company," Gilliam said.
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