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Hear yea, hear yea, China emits more carbon than the USA

Well according to this story from the BBC based upon a to be paper published the Journal of Environment Economics and Management, anyway, China overtook the USA as the biggest polluter around about 2005 or 2006.

Although how a  compound that has been part of the earths atmosphere since creation can be classed as pollution strikes me as an absurdity. But then politics and politicians are generally absurd and the political convenience of lambasting carbon based energy sources as a mechanism for gaining control over peoples lives and the creation of phantom products (carbon credits) is too good an opportunity for the power hungry to ignore.

Incidentally  it is now 10 years  since "the warmest year  on record"  which was  according to the methodology of the alarmists 1998.  That 1998 was the warmest year on record is a matter of some dispute since the records and methodology for defining how warm a year is or was has not been  consistent "since records have been kept".  There is good reason to believe that using the current methods and definitions that the "warmest year since records have been kept" actually occurred sometime during the nineteen thirties but that is an "inconvenient truth".

Whatever, now we have the much heralded free trade agreement with China we can help them get even further ahead in the race to become the biggest carbon emitter by selling them more of our West Coast Coal to fuel the industries that produce the products we will buy in exchange.

And the global warming industry will continue to flourish by morphing into the climate change industry as the predictions of the IPCC fail to come to fruition.

Hey all you believers out there

Believers in global warming that is.

The temperature data for 2007 is just in and you know that all that scary  0.75^c warming that has occurred over the past 100 years. 

Well its all gone away.

Darn it 2007 looks to be the coldest year in the last 100 years.

What's going to happen to our carbon credit industry?

What's going to happen to the Greens election campaign?

"You fool Andrei, its the trend that counts, not just one anomalous  year, you just don't understand climate science"

True enough, no shame in that since most of the "climate scientists" don't appear to either.

But this guy predicted this  was going to happen  sometime within the next few years based on his knowledge of solar physics,  although he didn't pick that last year was as "cold" as it actually was.

I predict that if 2008 shapes up much the same as 2007 there is going to be a lot of people with a lot of egg on their faces if its not there already.

How Global warming is creating global hunger

Global warming is starting to adversely affect humanity.  And this has become strikingly obvious in the past year. 

The impact of climate change is showing up as  increasing food prices as the available food supply decreases.

And the  spike in food prices has nothing to do with climate change per se.  Rather it is the diversion of grain crops from use as food into use as fuel.

The price of corn, a staple in much of the world, has just about doubled in the past 12 months. there have already been riots in Mexico as a result - the so called tortilla wars

And here is the real problem, pure  bio-diesel  costs about US $3.50 a gallon or 92c a liter.  To compare Diesel (already a blended with biodiesel) is retailing at about US $3.20 a gallon in Dallas.

But the biodiesel industry is growing in leaps and bounds as has the ethanol industry - ethanol is blended into petrol in the United States as a feel good measure.

And this is causing   real problems. It even explains Servants query as to the rise in the price of chicken.

Chickens are raised on grain of course and as grain prices rise so do the price of eggs and chicken - economics 101.   Moreover land used to produce other  food   is converted grow those more useful to produce biofuel increasing the price of those crops.

Of course the good people of Jeanette Fitzsimons' constituency can, for the time being anyway, absorb the increased in price of chicken and if they think about it at all when they get to the checkout will probably put the increased price down to human greed or something. It will never occur to them that it is green feel good measures that are at the primary driver behind this nor the impact these are having upon the less fortunate.

It  will it never occur to them that they are fueling hunger in the third world  as  rice paddys are converted into  jatropha fields to create biodiesel  for  rich western nations meet their "sustainability" targets.

As the worlds food reserves sink to the lowest level in 25 years it is becoming apparent how dangerous global warming really is. And it has nothing to do with melting ice sheets or disappearing  polar bears and everything to do with pampered wealthy people worrying about phantom threats and taking actions to mitigate them at the expense of the poor.

But then I guess people from Africa are not as photogenic as polar bears.

D'ya reckon this will save the planet?

On Saturday the 29^th of March Christchurch will mark "global earth hour" by switching its lights off for one hour. 

A symbolic gesture at best.

But in reality of course this whole exercise will probably consume more electricity than if the lights were left burning for the entire hour.

At the end of "global earth hour" there will be a sudden demand for electricity as all those powered down devices power up, drawing more electricity than if they had been left on and creating problems for the suppliers.

Which leads to this next story - it may well turn out that the fifth Labour government's greatest contribution to the future prosperity of New Zealand's citizens  will be an unreliable and expensive power system.  Labour's equivalent  of "think big" but in the long term by far more damaging to New Zealand than that ever was.

And of course the whole thing is based upon dodgy science in the first place.

But at least the penny seems to be slowly dropping in that regard.

This time last year I doubt the Dominion would have even conceded there was a debate over climate change, rather we would have been informed "the science is settled".

And talking of last year here is a prediction of mine from January 2^nd 2007.

And its confirmation courtesy of Seth Borenstein from Associated Press.

Taking the high ground on catastrophic climate change

Here is a fellow who sees a benefit in global warming. It will save America from conservatism.

According to his reasoning it is the more conservative parts of the USA that will bear the brunt of the effects of climate change. Florida, Texas, the Carolinas and so forth will be inundated  " in the lifetime of my two cats"  either drowning the  conservatives who inhabit those regions drowning  or forcing them to flee as refugees.

Likewise the Midwest, also a bastion of conservatism will become desertified, again depopulating the lands of conservatives. And the arid Southwest 

already parched and stiflingly hot, the rise in energy costs and the soaring temperatures will put an end to right-wing retirement communities like Phoenix, Tucson and Palm Springs. Already the Salton Sea is fading away and putting Palm Springs on notice that the good times are coming to an end. Another right-wing haven soon to be gone.

The author is a compassionate fellow however.

The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figuratively, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city. They certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure that these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes.

There will be much work to be done to help the earth and its residents-human and non-human-survive this man-made catastrophe, and we can’t have these future refugee troglodytes, should their personal disasters still fail to make them recognize reality, mucking things up again.

It should be considered acceptable, in this stifling new world, to say, “Shut up. We told you this would happen.”

My prediction is that Galveston⁽¹⁾, inundated in 1900 and rebuilt, will  be shipping oil  long after the author's  cats have gone to that great cattery in the sky. And that the author's prediction Armageddon for red state America is somewhat premature.

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(1) The 1900 hurricane that flattened Galveston remains to this day the greatest natural disaster in the history of the United States killing an estimated 12,000 people. It is a testament to human endurance and will that the city was rebuilt and the lessons learned about storm surges from that disaster applied to save lives in subsequent storms.

Human fat power

You have probably heard Jeanette Fitzsimons is getting a bit sniffy over the government's purchase of new BMWs to replace the Ford Fairlanes they currently use to ferry themselves and visiting dignitarys around in.

Poor David Parker, freshly back from saving the planet in Bali, returns to deal with accusations of buying planet wrecking 3 litre diesel cars.

But Kiwis are innovators, surely there an eco friendly solution?

Pete Bethune provides  a possible answer.  He is about to set off on a global circumnavigation with  zero carbon footprint.

His speedboat Earthrace is powered by biodiesel.  Some of it derived from his own body fat⁽¹⁾.

It seems he underwent liposuction along with two other volunteers and this procedure provided 10 litres of human body fat - enough to fuel about 15 kilometers of the 44,000 kilometer  (24,000 nautical mile) journey.

The way has been shown, Mr Parker.

Put all those Bellamy's lunches to good use, eat well, undergo liposuction on a regular basis and provide all the fuel needed for  your journeys in government beamers.

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(1) I hesitate to mention this but using human fat for any purpose makes me somewhat uncomfortable for reasons that, in part anyway, lie in  fairly recent European history.

What was really agreed to in Bali?

Not much really.

It would seem that they agreed to have more meetings to see if they can reach agreement.

Never-the-less the Government is seems pleased.

Climate change week continues at TBR

Well its worth a mention today because Pope Benedict XVI has just issued his world peace day message and in it he says that people are the  most important part of creation.

The earth is the home of the human family, says the Holy Father, highlighting the need "to care for the environment" which "has been entrusted to men and women to be protected and cultivated with responsible freedom, with the good of all as a constant guiding criterion.”

The Pope was careful to explain that, contrary to the attitude of some environmentalists, “[h]uman beings, obviously, are of supreme worth vis-a-vis creation as a whole.” “Respecting the environment does not mean considering material or animal nature more important than man," the Holy Father said.

Which has got up a few peoples noses.

The central theme of the Pope's message is the sanctity of the family and how this institution is central to the welfare of humanity.

Indeed this should be self evident - the violent and dysfunctional amongst  us rarely  come from stable loving families.

Of course not everyone is blessed with good parents a fact that is depressingly obvious each time we pick up a newspaper.

But for some reason imparting  parenting skills is not something the education system nor society at large places a high premium on.

Kids are taught all about valuing their "sexuality" and to worry over the welfare of polar bears but diddly on the how to nurture their own young let alone the value of having them.  They might well pick up the message that it is "selfish"  to have too many children or any at all  -  as some have.

Another view that might be absorbed is that pregnancy is akin to genital herpes,  something you catch from unsafe sex . And we know where that meme originated - from the endless barrage of "always use a condom"  and practice "safe sex" that the educational establishment has foisted upon us and our children.

So while the Pope's message is really about building strong families and how that is the key to a more humane and safer world what has been taken from it in some quarters is

(1) An attack on environmentalism:  The Pope condemns the climate change prophets of doom

(2) An attack on gays:    Pope's message - gay weddings threaten peace

Which just goes to show the lengths people will go to to avoid hearing an 'inconvenient truth". 

Maybe Homo sapiens could evolve more sapience

Human evolution has sped up over the past 10,000 years according to a paper published  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

And as a result the human race is becoming more divergent not more uniform according to the studies lead author, Professor  Henry Harpending of Utah University.

• "We aren't the same as people even 1,000 or 2,000 years ago," he says, which may explain, for example, part of the difference between Viking invaders and their peaceful Swedish descendants. "The dogma has been these are cultural fluctuations, but almost any Temperament trait you look at is under strong genetic influence."
• "Human races are evolving away from each other," Harpending says. "Genes are evolving fast in Europe, Asia and Africa, but almost all of these are unique to their continent of origin. We are getting less alike, not merging into a single, mixed humanity." He says that is happening because humans dispersed from Africa to other regions 40,000 years ago, "and there has not been much flow of genes between the regions since then."

Indeed he may well be right.

I do believe a new sub-species has appeared within the human population within the past few years, Homo  sapiens unicus.

This sub species of humanity is plumper and better fed than the average Homo sapiens. This is a result of  parasitism on more gullible  members of the species.

An example of their modus operandi is on  display in Bali this week where  over 10,000 of them have gathered. 

To fully understand the implications of the Bali worryfest  it is necessary to note that majority of the Homo sapiens unicus gathered there are from the Northern Hemisphere where it is currently winter and somewhat cold.

Bali however is in the southern hemisphere and tropical. So what better place to get away from the dreariness of  winter  and gather with your own kind to further scheme on how to usurp the resources of the more productive members of the species, who have already provided you with the resources needed to get there in the first place. 

Very little is said about the hypocrisy surrounding this event but here is an article carried in an Indian newspaper a few days ago that wryly notes amongst other things that the emissions this conference will generate exceed those of  small African nations.

When the bubble finally bursts on the climate change industry and ordinary members of the species are no longer willing to fund it you can count on Homo sapiens  unicus identifying another worry to exploit in keeping themselves comfortable and well fed without actually doing anything of real value.

Perhaps Homo sapiens unicus should be thinking about the problems of increasing entropy, the universe as we know it is doomed.  That is a problem that could keep them busy and well fed for the next 15,000,000,000 years or so. 

Humanity is a pollutant

Whats the biggest issue facing mankind today?

I suspect it is that might be that our intellectual elites do not actually value people.

The idiot of the day award goes to an Australian  obstetrician, Professor Barry Walters, who in a letter to  the Medical journal of Australia suggests parents should be taxed for having children to offset the effect of their extra greenhouse gas emissions.

He suggests $5000 at birth and $800 each year thereafter.

Walters, an obstetrician, made his proposal in a letter in which he criticised the government's payment of a 4,000 dollar "baby bonus" in a bid to boost the birth rate in this sparsely-populated country of 21 million people.

Paying parents extra for every baby fuelled more emissions and contributed to global warming, he said, adding that the bonus should be replaced with a "baby levy" in line with the "polluter pays" principle.

There it is in black and white folks - a new born baby isn't a blessing it is just another form of pollution. 

What does this clown really want - the UN to hand the planet back over to the blue-green algae perhaps?

Like that would make the world a better place.

Another demonstration of how  education and academic credentials don't necessarily make you smart.