February 9, 2010
Broken Britain
We're living in broken Britain, say most voters - Times Online
Nearly three fifths of voters say that they hardly recognise the country they are living in, while 42 per cent say they would emigrate if they could.
Overall, 64 per cent think that Britain is going in the wrong direction and just 31 per cent believe it is on the right track.
But underneath there is still a hint of optimism that life will probably get better, despite the politicians.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM
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Greenpeace opposes more food and less pesticides
India awaits go-ahead on first GM crop despite scientists’ warnings - Times Online
India will decide tomorrow whether to approve its first genetically modified (GM) food crop. It is a move that supporters argue will help to avert a global food crisis but which critics say is being rushed through recklessly.
Bt Brinjal has enormous potential to benefit farmers & consumers: AICBA | Checkbiotech
The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC), the Indian regulatory authority, has approved Bt brinjal for environmental release in India and its commercial release is subject to the approval from the Ministry of Environment & Forests, in 2010.
With Bt brinjal, farmers will use 70% less insecticide for FSB control and, as a result, 42% less pesticide overall for control of all insect pests. In addition to the reduced pesticide use, overall yield of marketable fruit is expected to rise 116% over conventional hybrids and 166% over conventional varieties. Higher yields and better quality produce would result in higher net income for brinjal farmers...
But our well fed friends at Greenpeace and similar organisations are against it...
Bt Brinjal will be single largest disaster for India
Posted by The Englishman at 6:56 AM
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Winter Olympic Mascot
+ size - http://mbarrick.livejournal.com/
Polish newspaper claims 'Pedobear' is 2010 Vancouver Olympic mascot
Mr Barrick wrote that online amusement about the newspaper's error had sparked a surge of interest in his artwork, and hinted that the financial burden of the Games on Canadian taxpayers was the motivation for his mischievous creation.
"Maybe I'll just keep the money to help cover the price gouging, raised taxes, disappearing arts funding, and all the other "benefits" we Vancouverites are getting from the games that are kicking me in the back pocket."
Error? Only that "Shooting-up Junkie Bear" and "Cash in Brown Envelopes Bear " are missing from the line up.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:33 AM
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February 8, 2010
Oil Greases Pahcauri's Release On Voluptuous Breasts
Return to Almora By RK Pachauri
Throughout the novel, an intrusive and not particularly charming narrator alternates lectures on the destruction of the environment, and the value of the spiritual, with apparently trivial details.
However, Return to Almora is an entertaining read. It mixes two strands: one is the vivid memory of Sanjay's past life as a merchant in Almora some years before his present birth. The novel follows his life from the age of three until his sixties; his search to understand how his soul has migrated leads him to meditation and to seek out various guru figures with whom further turgid discussion ensues. But the subplot of Sanjay's sexual life, at first solitary, then involving other people, provides rich and frequent diversion.
Pachauri is engagingly candid about his protagonist's urges; Sanjay is always noticing breasts and masturbating (once into a red silk hanky purloined from a train co-passenger ). While an engineering student, he has his first experience with a woman. She has been procured by his more frivolous friends: "So this is how the non-engineering students enjoy themselves, he thought enviously."
Rajendra Pachauri raises more eyebrows with raunchy environmental novel - Times Online
..the book mingles lectures on climate change with descriptions of Sanjay’s sexual encounters, including frequent references to “voluptuous breasts”.
More controversially, it was released in Mumbai by Mukesh Ambani — India’s richest man and the head of the oil and gas conglomerate Reliance Industries, the largest private Indian company.
Reliance has close links to Dr Pachauri’s The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)...
For the Delhi launch of the book dinner and drinks were paid for by BP India, a big TERI sponsor....
It is unclear whether Dr Pachauri will profit from the novel. Many environmentalists regard it as unwise for a co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to accept such personal favours from energy industry giants.
Dr Pachauri has defended his relationship with such companies, saying that there is no conflict of interest. Environmental activists disagree, saying that he needs to draw clearer lines between his personal interests, TERI, its sponsors and the IPCC.
Bob Ward, the policy director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, said: "A lot of the climate sceptic arguments are being made by people (who) are clearly being given money that allows them to disseminate their views more widely than would be the case if they didn't have oil company funding."
Posted by The Englishman at 7:30 AM
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Krebs Defends Sceptical Science
We might err, but science is self-correcting | John Krebs - Times Online
...the stories underline two important features of scientists and science. First, scientists, just like every other trade — bus drivers, lawyers and bricklayers — are a mix. Most are pretty average, a few are geniuses, some are a bit thick, and some dishonest.
Second, science itself is often misunderstood. Scientists tend to be portrayed as voices of authority who are able to reveal truths about arcane problems, be it the nature of quarks or the molecular basis of ageing. In fact, science is almost the opposite of this...Richard Feyman’s phrase says it best: “Science is the organised scepticism in the reliability of expert opinion.”
An Oxford colleague, one of the world’s top climate scientists, made the same point last week when he said to me: “It’s odd that people talk about ‘climate sceptics’ as though they are a special category. All of us in the climate science community are climate sceptics. It’s our job to question and challenge everything.” Any scientist will tell you that when you turn up at a conference the audience will do its best to tear your findings to pieces: no one takes anything for granted.
There is, of course, no excuse for scientists who over-egg or massage their results, or who underplay the uncertainties in their conclusions. The prevailing view in many areas of science will include significant uncertainties (as with climate change), so challenge is central to the progress of understanding....if scientists have a right to be heard, they have a responsibility to be scrupulously honest and not to claim more than is justified by the evidence.
And that should be inscribed in stone.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:13 AM
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Ruddy Duck Shooting
A controversial UK cull of ruddy ducks, a US native that has been compared to a "feathered lager lout" for its displays of thuggish and amorous behaviour' - its mating call sounds more like a belch, it boasts a penis half the length of its body and, after mating, it ignores its partner - has cost the British taxpayer more than £740 for each dead bird.
Figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) show that shoots of the chestnut-coloured bird have cost taxpayers £4.6m, yet only 6,200 have been killed.
And to think that in the real world people pay £25 a bird to shoot duck, and provide all their own equipment. For some reason I feel a kindred spirit to the poor ruddy duck, but if we are going to persecute them then I don't see why we should so handsomely subsidise someone else's sport.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:54 AM
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February 7, 2010
Murderous Sceptics
Despite the sceptics, climate change must remain a priority | Editorial - The Observer - Comment
Climate Change policy is in the public domain, the relentless attacks from skeptics is sabotage. And in the case of the attacks in Mumbai, during the launch of Live Earth, murderous.
I hadn't realised the attacks which killed more than 170 were the work of climate sceptics before.
Posted by The Englishman at 4:06 PM
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Climate Stories of the Day
EU Referendum: And now for Africagate
The finger points more firmly at Dr R K Pachauri but it is a more nuanced error than Glaciergate which everyone could understand at a glance.
It is going to be harder to get traction with this ironically partly because of Richard North's success in exposing the rotten heart of the report. Every journalist now knows there are easy picking there and there is a multiplicity of stories in the papers today.
Enjoy them, but remember on Monday the same taxes, restrictions, reporting requirements and state intrusions demanded by the great god of carbon will still be in place, and that future plans and putative policies proposed by our politicians are unchanged.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:48 AM
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Charles the Cnut
Charles at the launch of a new Steam Train
So who advises Charles? Travelling to give a speech about climate change on a coal fired train is just daft but to make a point in the speech about sea levels proving anything is stupid. It is one of the easiest "climate change" charges that any sceptic can challenge.
Or is he just harking back to a halcyon past when 'umble train drivers and stokers doffed their blackened caps to their betters as they progressed to an unchanged coast to take the waters?
Unfortunately kings can't stop the tide and look silly if they try to.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:34 AM
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Costa del Clyde
Plant foreign trees 'to save our forests' - Scotsman.com News
SCOTTISH forests should be replanted with Lebanon cedar, Oriental spruce, Macedonian pine, Greek fir, Mexican white pine, Italian alder, Shagbark hickory, Oriental beech, Eucalyptus and Hungarian oak and not native species, according to a leading expert in a Forestry Commission study.
The imported trees must form a vital part of a dramatic expansion of tree cover as global warming changes the Scottish environment, says Professor Sir David Read.
And vineyards and olive groves on the bonny banks of the lochs..
Posted by The Englishman at 9:28 AM
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February 6, 2010
The Game
I'm going under the wire this afternoon to escape to The King's Arms to watch the game with some ethnic friends.
UPDATE - What a great game to watch;
Posted by The Englishman at 8:56 AM
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Today I have mainly been planting these
+ No, not baby Stens, it is my Open-arse Orchard - it will be worth waiting for them to mature and blet.
More on Open-arses here: The Art and Mystery of Medlar fruit and Jelly
Posted by The Englishman at 8:48 AM
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Bad News for Dave
Climate Change Opinion Poll Results
OK, if we have a baking summer the figures will change a bit, but that isn't going to happen before the election.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:43 AM
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February 5, 2010
Friday Night is Music Night (Get a Haircut Edition)
Posted by The Englishman at 5:01 PM
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Marks out of ten
The new politics.co.uk blogs channel has spent many hours visiting, reviewing and marking hundreds of blogs - haven't they got a life?
Oh and thanks for the 7/10 - I'm chuffed.
Posted by The Englishman at 1:02 PM
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Snouts Smacked
MPs' expenses - Telegraph - Full guide
MPs and peers to learn if they face criminal charges over expenses - Telegraph
Detectives are confident that up to three politicians - two MPs and a peer - will face criminal charges over their expenses claims.
Only three? I have plenty of the hempen in the barn for a few more to be added to the list...
Posted by The Englishman at 7:01 AM
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Exercise a waste of time
'Jogging, swimming, pumping iron's a waste of time' - The Times of India
They claim it is only a waste of time for 20% of people, the sample in my research shows it is 100%
Posted by The Englishman at 6:55 AM
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Quangocracy Thrive
Spending on quangos rises by £10bn despite Gordon Brown’s pledge
Since Gordon Brown became Prime Minister the annual figure has increased by more than 25 per cent from £37 billion to £46.5 billion despite largely coinciding with the worst recession since the 1930s. The number of employees has risen, though, from 95,000 to 110,000.
The figures will be highly embarrassing to the Government, which announced a drive to cut quango costs as part of its efficiency savings package last year.
Remind which ones should be spared the ax when public expenditure is cut, I'm struggling to come up with any names.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:47 AM
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Yeo answers disgraceful smear
Tim Yeo’s Green Networking in Parliament Pays Off - Guy Fawkes' blog
Tim Yeo MP is the current Chairman of the Environmental Audit Select Committee.
Coincidentally Tim is also chairman of a small investment-hungry AIM listed company called AFC Energy plc developing “environmentally friendly fuel cells”. In July last year he sponsored an evening event for 150 members of the Environmental Investment Network. Held in the impressively plush Members’ Dining Room overlooking the Thames, it certainly is a pleasant environment in which to woo and lubricate potential green investors.
At the time AFC Energy plc were raising £2 million from environmental investors, and for each of the following five months AFC Energy paid Tim Yeo £3,750 a month (up to a total of £18,750) until in December when they succeeded in raising the £2m they were seeking from environmental investors in a share placing. Tim also got a bonus when the shares were placed with investors of 150,000 shares for his work. All in all he made a total of some £80,000 out of the AFC deal from July when he hosted the Environmental Investment Network event until December when they sold the shares to investors.
Guido is on Newsnight tonight with Tim Yeo...
Posted by The Englishman at 6:45 AM
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February 4, 2010
UEA Witchhunt
Detectives question climate change scientist over email leaks | guardian.co.uk
University of East Anglia scientist Paul Dennis denies leaking material, but links to climate change sceptics in US drew him to attention of the investigators
Dennis refused to sign a petition in support of Jones when the scandal broke. He told friends he was one of several staff unwilling to put their names to the Met Office-inspired statement in support of the global warming camp, because "science isn't done by consensus".
University sources say the head of department, Professor Jacquie Burgess, received a letter from Dennis at the height of the email uproar, calling for more open release of data. He appears to have disapproved of the way Jones resisted FoI requests.
Dennis's own research, which dates fluctuating temperatures in ice cores stretching back thousands of years, does not support the more catastrophic current predictions of runaway global warming.
He has a history of contact with the American bloggers who bombarded Jones's unit with FoI requests, and were the first to receive the leaks. ...
Not a team player then....
Posted by The Englishman at 9:53 PM
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Deer in the distance
+ size
Random view from The Castle taken on the phone, pursuit of mammon prevents any earth-shattering revelations this morning.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:17 AM
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February 3, 2010
Those Private Eye Climategate Revelations in Full
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Nothing, not a word in this weeks issue that I can see, just some overpaid soccer player on the front cover and a weak pun about willies.
Pathetic.
Posted by The Englishman at 12:03 PM
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‘Democratising science’ through the mobilisation of an extended peer community carries risks as well as benefits. - Mike Hulme
Climate change has mutated from being a physical phenomenon to be studied to an idea to be contested. The sites of adjudication between competing truth claims have therefore moved from the secluded academy and scientific peer review to the vociferous agora and the extended peer community.
......
Removing science from its ‘black-box’ status by subjecting its truth-claims to different forms of public scrutiny and accountability .. adds new social value to scientific knowledge. It also opens up possibilities for adjusting public expectations about the different levels of confidence with which science can speak. But this can cut both ways...
The case of Callendar, Gore and Mt. Kilimanjaro’s glaciers also illustrates the ambiguous – or at least the conditional - benefits of moving truth adjudications from the republic to the agora. Democratisation of science, in this case discursive checking of scientific claims by Beck’s ‘open upper chamber’, may destabilise knowledge as much as it may legitimise it. The interplay between these two consequences of the democratic move in science depends crucially on notions of trust: trust in the transparency with which experts are selected and trust in the new processes of adjudication thereby established – in this case the judiciary. If the reality of climate change on the basis of evidence is to be ‘owned’ by the people, the people must be confident that adequate provisions are made for quality assurance of that evidence by an extended peer community. As the case of Kilimanjaro’s glaciers shows, such confidence has to be earned not assumed.
An prescient paper he wrote last year, very interesting.
Posted by The Englishman at 11:05 AM
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Olympics are Elitist - Boo Hiss
A third of British athletes taking part in the London 2012 Olympics will be privately educated, despite the Government spending more than a £1 billion to encourage state school pupils to become international athletes
Nothing like picking winners with the taxpayer's dollar is there? I'm sure once Team GB has acted on its equality quotas to ensure the team fairly represents the diversity of the population then we will enjoy seeing a much fairer team lose.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:20 AM
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The Sun Threatens The Olympics - Hurrah!
Scientists warn solar activity could hit London 2012 Olympic games - contains video
Scientists warned yesterday that a peak in solar activity is due to occur in 2012, risking the disruption of television and internet networks during the London Olympic Games.
“The Olympics could be bang in the middle of a solar maximum,” said Richard Harrison, of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory...the Sun appears to be stirring, after several years in “deep minimum”. Between 2008 and 2009 there were more than 250 “spotless” days — a record low since 1913. However, in the past two weeks two solar flares have developed, indicating that the Sun is likely to be entering a more active phase in its eleven-year cycle.
Sexy science: Earth at the mercy of a restless Sun - Times Online
Given that the Sun’s variation can cause a difference of 1.4 watts for every square metre on Earth, studying solar activity could be very important in understanding our planet’s changing climate.
Win win - a nice warm spell and no Olympics on the telly, what could be better.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:20 AM
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Dr Jones at your service
Phil Jones, scientist in climate data row, promises to be more open - Times Online
Yes in future he will ask if you want fries with that and/or if you want to "go large".
Posted by The Englishman at 7:02 AM
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February 2, 2010
Simple Needs
No apology from IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri for glacier fallacy - The Guardian
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said it would be hypocritical to apologise for the false claim that Himalayan glaciers could melt away by 2035, because he was not personally responsible for that part of the report.
.. He said reports of further errors in the IPCC report linked to grey literature were spurious and the result of a "factory" of people "only there to create pinpricks and get attention".
...His salary from the research institute that employs him is fixed in the range of 190,000 rupees (£2,600) a month, he said, while he receives only travel expenses for chairing the IPCC.
The average monthly income for an Indian is Rs 3,116 (£42).
Mahatama Gandhi's philosophy of simplicity and equality is extremely relevant in the present context of the dangerous impact of global warming, noted climate change expert R K Pachauri has said.
The chairman of United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which won the Nobel peace prize in 2007, pointed out that Gandhi has influenced many by his philosophy of simplicity and equality.
In this reference, he noted that when asked recently with whom he would love to have dinner, US President Barack Obama had said "Gandhiji of course." Obama is reported to have added that he knew that the meal -- as well as the attire for the evening -- would be "so simple," Pachauri said.
Referring to Gandhiji's simple lifestyle, Pachauri said "flawed models of development" encourages migration from rural areas to the cities.
Recalling Gandhiji's prophetic words that "the earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs but not every man's greed," Pachauri deplored the belief that only one pattern of development was good.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:23 PM
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Peer Review Problems - Not Just in Climate Science
BBC News - Journal stem cell work 'blocked'
Stem cell experts say they believe a small group of scientists is effectively vetoing high quality science from publication in journals.
In some cases they say it might be done to deliberately stifle research that is in competition with their own.
"It's turning things into a clique where only papers that satisfy this select group of a few reviewers who think of themselves as very important people in the field is published."
The issue is important because billions of pounds of public money are spent on funding stem cell research internationally. The funding is directed largely towards groups and individuals who have had their research published in the top journals. So if the journals are getting it wrong then public money is going to waste.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:58 AM
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Laughing at the Naked
EU Referendum: The power of prestige
(Just) attacking the science cannot prevail. It is a necessary but not sufficient endeavour. This is not about science but "prestige". The only sure way to destroy the scam is to rob the players of that vital quality, their own "prestige".
And prestige isn't destroyed just by pointing out how wrong or untruthful people are. The real weapon is ridicule. It isn't enough to notice the Emperor has no clothes, the little boys must laugh as him as well. No wonder they hate the global warming jokes so much, bring on the jesters.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 AM
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The King has no Clothes
David King admits to speculation over source of climate science emails |guardian.co.uk
Spouting off from a position of ignorance I believe is the technical term - James Delingpole is less charitable
Posted by The Englishman at 6:30 AM
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Golden Geese Flee
Treasury loses as top earners dodge 50p tax - Times Online
High earners will cost the public purse hundreds of millions of pounds through tax dodges as they avoid the new 50p rate of income tax, a minister indicated yesterday.
Lord Myners, the City Minister, said that the Treasury had “significantly reduced” its estimate of the revenue to be earned from the historic change.
They are not costing the public purse anything, there is nothing dodgy about their behaviour. They are acting rationally, the public purse never had the money and should never have expected it. I'm sure proper economists have a name for the effect, it is just that the politics of envy pretend it doesn' exist.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:27 AM
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February 1, 2010
+++ Guardian Launches "Major Investigation" into Climategate and Phil Jones +++
Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws |guardian.co.uk
Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws
Exclusive: Key study by East Anglia professor Phil Jones was based on suspect figures
Read the full story here
In the first part of a major investigation of the so-called 'climategate' emails, one of Britain's top science writers Fred Pearce reveals how researchers tried to hide flaws in a key study...
It is difficult to imagine a more bizarre academic dispute. Where exactly are 42 weather monitoring stations in remote parts of rural China?
But the argument over the weather stations, and how it affects an important set of data on global warming, has led to accusations of scientific fraud and may yet result in a significant revision of a scientific paper that is still cited by the UN's top climate science body.
It also further calls into question the integrity of the scientist at the centre of the scandal over hacked climate emails, the director of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), Dr Phil Jones. The emails suggest that he helped cover up crucial flaws in temperature data from China that underpinned his research on the strength of recent global warming....
The story will be familiar to many regular readers, but to see it splashed here and properly investigated makes it a major story.
The full emails the Guardian has belatedly discovered are 1188557698.txt and 1241415427.txt
Posted by The Englishman at 9:59 PM
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And now, the end is here....
FREE MARKET FAIRY TALES: Someday;& that day may never come…
Vale, lacerte!
Posted by The Englishman at 8:23 AM
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Telegraph Praises "Others" in Climategate
We need facts, not spin, in the climate debate - Telegraph
Telegraph View: the case that global warming is man-made needs to be constantly tested and credible
....Mr Booker and others have been enormously energetic in pointing out the weaknesses and uncertainties in the argument. Are the doubts enough to mean that the Government is proceeding from a false premise? There is no doubt that there needs to be a continued and vigorous debate on this topic – although there are, of course, additional reasons for decreasing our dependence on carbon, such as the need for energy security, the desirability of adopting more energy-efficient (and therefore cheaper) technologies, and the role of CO2 in the acidification of the oceans. Ministers' insistence that those who question their presumptions are irrational and dogmatic does nothing to help bring about the consensus that is so sorely needed.
"Mr Booker and others", that wouldn't be blogs would it? Those pesky unfunded independent non-journalists who have lead this investigation?
Posted by The Englishman at 7:04 AM
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Dave and Jesus share a Girly Problem
Is David Cameron a girlie man? – Telegraph Blogs
....the Tories have pledged to increase government funding to local authorities. If you remember, they were originally only going to promise increases in education, health and international aid expenditure. Now that there’s a fourth part of government that can’t be cut, many Tories will be wondering: is Dave an economic girlie man?
Real men find Church too girly -Times Online Real men don't like going to church because they don't want to "sing love songs to a man", because the "vicar wears a dress", because they feel like "mongrels on parade at Crufts"...The image of church is 'women and children' - action songs or kid's plays just emphasise this.... Men don't want to feel brainwashed by reciting words that they don't believe... The problem has become male culture versus church culture. Too many sermons talk about Jesus’ love, compassion and grace which are great but not male concepts. Men want to know about his great decision making and leadership. That is what they recognise. Churches are very pastorally driven whereas blokes are looking for decisions not discussions.
At least the Church recognises it has the problem.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:56 AM
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Ed Miliband Admits His Energy Policy Won't Deliver
Labour prepares to tear up 12 years of energy policy - Times Online
The Government is drawing up plans for a wholesale reform of Britain’s energy markets that could wind back the clock on 12 years of deregulation.
In an interview with The Times, Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said that Britain’s existing, highly liberalised market regime, introduced under Labour in 1998, was failing to deliver the investment needed to cut UK carbon emissions by more than a third by 2020.
Mr Miliband said: “We are going to need a more interventionist energy policy to deliver the low-carbon investment we need.”
Mr Miliband said that big reforms would be essential to deliver the estimated £170 billion of investment to meet its goals of huge carbon cuts.
He said that one alternative would be a return to “capacity payments” — in which power station operators would be paid for the electricity they generate and also for capacity made available. The idea of such payments is to give greater certainty to investors in renewable and nuclear energy. They would help to bolster the reliability of a grid that was more heavily reliant on power generation from wind farms.
A huge expansion of wind power is expected to have a big impact on the reliability of the national grid, which capacity payments could help to offset. Wind energy is intermittent and heavily reliant on back-up power generation for use when it is not blowing.
Carbon Cuts; Carbon Cuts; Wind; Carbon Cuts; Whoops it doesn't bloody work, the lights are going out.
Solution, more of the same!
Posted by The Englishman at 6:44 AM
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Rajendra Pachauri Briefed Against by Sir Humphrey
Rajendra Pachauri, who has faced criticism as chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change following allegations of inaccurate statements in panel reports, suffered a fresh blow last night when he failed to get the backing of the British government.
A senior government official reiterated Pachauri's position but stopped short of expressing confidence in him. "The position is that he is the chair and he has indicated that mistakes were made," the climate change official said. "There is no vacancy at this stage, so there is no issue at this stage."
That arch "at this stage" and what is left unsaid... for the first time I think he may have to retire to his "writing" room sooner than later.
Posted by The Englishman at 6:35 AM
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Guardian Damns the Co Op, Praises McDonalds & Coca Cola
Supermarket fridges as polluting as their plastic bags, study claims | The Guardian
The research points the finger at "ethical" grocer the Co-operative Group, which scored the lowest marks of the major grocery chains...
More climate-friendly chemicals have been adopted... by major multinationals including McDonalds and Coca-Cola.
There will be some spluttering into the muesli in Notting Hill this morning
Posted by The Englishman at 6:31 AM
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January 31, 2010
IPCC AR4 Properly Peer Reviewed
IPCC Based Claims On Student Dissertation And Magazine Article
Before our eyes we see real peer review happening, not cosy logrolling.
It is not nearly so comfortable, but much more productive.
Posted by The Englishman at 9:52 AM
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Climate Change Believers Must "Organise" - Hurrah!
Ed Miliband declares war on climate change sceptics
The climate secretary, Ed Miliband, last night warned of the danger of a public backlash against the science of global warming in the face of continuing claims that experts have manipulated data.
In an exclusive interview with the Observer, Miliband spoke out for the first time about last month's revelations that climate scientists had withheld and covered up information and the apology made by the influential UN climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which admitted it had exaggerated claims about the melting of Himalayan glaciers.
The perceived failure of global talks on combating climate change in Copenhagen last month has also been blamed for undermining public support. But in the government's first high-level recognition of the growing pressure on public opinion, Miliband declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" who denied global warming was real or caused by humans, or that there was a need to cut carbon emissions to tackle it....
"There's a message for people who take these things seriously: don't mourn, organise," said Miliband, who has previously called for a Make Poverty History-style mass public campaign to pressure politicians into cutting emissions.
Posted by The Englishman at 7:31 AM
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Climate Change Sceptics "Well Co-ordinated" Boo Hiss!
The Big Issue | Sceptics fiddle while the planet burns | From the Observer
...The facts are clear: the world is warming, emissions of greenhouse gases are largely to blame and the warming is set to get worse through the 21st century. To ignore that evidence would be foolhardy in the extreme.
Kathy Maskell
Walker Institute for Climate System Research
University of Reading
...Unlike questions such as the best policy for dealing with the recession, where two sides could in theory ague for all eternity, with climate change only one side can be correct. We just don't yet know which side is correct. As climate change deniers have failed to produce a peer-reviewed body of evidence pointing to a mechanism that would negate the impact of our emissions, caution would seem to be sensible.
David Coley
Senior research fellow
Centre for Energy and the Environment
School of Physics, Exeter
Despite the well co-ordinated political campaigns by "sceptics" against the IPCC, it remains the most authoritative source of information about the causes and consequences of climate change. Yet every error in its last report is now being portrayed as undermining the evidence that greenhouse gases are driving climate change. Perhaps it is time that the claims of the professional climate change "sceptics" are put to the same test.
Bob Ward
Policy and communications director, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE
London WC2
Posted by The Englishman at 7:31 AM
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January 30, 2010
Blue Green Fighting Like Ferrets in a Sack
Read the comments, this is a split as damaging as Europe for the Tories if they aren't careful.
They need old duffers to go round knocking on doors and if those old duffers don't believe then they won't go out to campaign.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:19 PM
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Holed beneath the water line
Amazongate: new evidence of the IPCC's failures - Telegraph
It is noticeable how many of those now calling for Dr Pachauri's resignation, led by Professor Andrew Weaver, a senior IPCC insider, are passionate global warming believers. Fearing that Pachauri damages their cause, they want him thrown overboard in the hope of saving the IPCC itself. But it is not just Pachauri who has been holed below the waterline. So has the entire IPCC process. And beyond that – and despite the pleading of Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and the BBC that none of this detracts from the evidence for man-made global warming – so has the warmist cause itself. Bereft of scientific or moral authority, the most expensive show the world has ever seen may soon be nearing its end.
And Philip Stott says
I have long predicted, and in public too, that the Copenhagen Conference could prove to be the beginning of the end for the Global Warming Grand Narrative. It appears that I may well have been right, and, indeed, I may have considerably underestimated the speed, and the dramatic nature, of the demise.
Where this all leaves our politicians and political parties in the UK; where it leaves climate science, scientists more generally, and the Royal Society; where it leaves energy policy; where it leaves the ‘Green’ movement; and, where it leaves our media will have to be topics for many later comments and analyses.
For the moment, we must not underestimate the magnitude of the collapse. Academically, it is jaw-dropping to observe.
And, the political, economic, and scientific consequences will be profound.
Climategate: time for the tumbrils – James Delingpole
Now it’s payback time and I take small satisfaction from seeing so many rats deserting their sinking ship. I don’t want them on my side. I want to see them in hell, reliving scenes from Hieronymus Bosch.
It is going to take a lot more than the potshots we have seen so far to sink the vessel, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” is still the command we are hearing from the great and good.
Posted by The Englishman at 8:44 PM
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Climate Change Cheating
Climate chief was told of false glacier claims before Copenhagen - Times Online
The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt.
Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it
Dr Pacharui has also been accused of using the error to win grants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Carelessness happens at times: TERI fellow - Global Warming - Environment - Home - The Times of IndiaThe Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) fellow and climate negotiator Prodipto Ghosh hits back: "If you don't trust scientists, who else will you trust?
Pachauri has nothing to do with this. He is not the author of the report. When he spoke about the deadline of glaciers melting, Prof Hasnain was not even with Teri — he was with JNU. Pachauri has been appointed by governments, not a bunch of people. The issue about his resignation is only a knee-jerk reaction. He will not resign."
Section 415 in The Indian Penal Code
Cheating.-- Whoever, by deceiving any person, fraudulently or dishonestly induces the person so deceived to deliver any property to any person, or to consent that any person shall retain any property, or intentionally induces the person so deceived to do or omit to do anything which he would not do or omit if he were not so deceived, and which act or omission causes or is likely to cause damage or harm to that person in body, mind, reputation or property, is said to" cheat".
Explanation.- A dishonest concealment of facts is a deception within the meaning of this section.
Posted by The Englishman at 11:11 AM
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English Votes Please
Dear Mr Englishman
Is there any chance you could publicise EVoEL on Power2010?
http://www.power2010.org.uk/votes/entry/english-votes-on-english-laws/
And encourage Tories to vote for it.
It's going to slip out of the top five unless the Tory blogosphere gets behind it. Power2010 are currently running a public vote to find the public's five most popular constitutional reforms. The top five reforms will form the basis for the 'Power2010 Pledge' to which every candidate at the forthcoming General Election will be lobbied to sign up to.
I think that it's in Conservatives' tactical interest to ensure that it stays in the top five and becomes part of the Power2010 Pledge. Doing so will help legitimise a Conservative policy by demonstrating public support for it (in what is essentially a left-wing campaign - promoted by Helena Kennedy and the Guardian), and it will make Labour and Lib Dem candidates think twice before signing the pledge and using Power2010 as a campaign tool for the General Election. In fact, I don't think that many Labour or Lib Dem PPC would sign the pledge if it includes EVoEL.
I'm not sure I have much influence on the Tory Blogosphere but it seems a worthy cause, I've signed.
Posted by The Englishman at 10:58 AM
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