ENVIRONMENTAL SCAMS
In order to impose on the world their dogmas and restrictions, the Environmental Movement has abandoned rational discussion, scientific method and open debate and adopted the principle that the ends justify the means. Distortion and fabrication of evidence has become routine, and is a feature of our news bulletins, scientific journals, schools and university departments. Sceptics are “deniers”, hounded from employment and publishable only on the Internet. Exaggeration, partial evidence, speculation and unjustified assumptions are compounded, often with the help of computers, to provide scare scenarios for the future. The following are examples:
NUCLEAR WINTER
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter)
This idea from the early 1980s arose from the popularity of computer models and was promoted by the physicist Carl Sagan. It was claimed that a serious nuclear war would not only cause many deaths and a disruption of human existence but would cause so much soot and other aerosols in the atmosphere that all plant life on earth would die.
The use of nuclear weapons would undoubtedly cause considerable harm. Since some 93{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of them are in the arsenals of Russia and the USA the priority is avoiding a war between them, something which we hope has become increasingly remote. As for the rest we should note that even nuclear bombing of modern towns, largely built from concrete and steel, would not contribute the vast amounts of smoke required for this theory.
We hope an international treaty for the abolition and destruction of such weapons may progress. Unfortunately this is unlikely until all states have a free choice, rather than being pushed around by those who own them already.
Sagan expected that the fires in the Kuwait oilfields would provide a “nuclear winter”. But he got it wrong. Some who think that Beijing ait pollution could be disastrous are unaware that similar problems of air pollution in Britain and elswhere have been successfully solved without a possible “nuclear winter”
When I lived in Manchester in 1951 I recall a “pea soup fog” where I could not see an illuminated street lamp. I was a member of the Clean Air Society at the time. This Society was dissolved when a policy of clean air was adopted by most local bodies, despite occasional lapses.
SILENT SPRING
(see http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1259
Silent Spring by biologist/zoologist Rachel Carson (Houghton Miflin 1962) warned of the dangers that DDT allegedly posed to all manner of plant, animal, and human life. These threats were so great, said Carson, that on balance they more than negated whatever benefits were to be gained from using the pesticide to prevent malaria.
Carson claimed that the atmospheric presence of DDT and its metabolites, DDE (Dichloro-Diphenyldichloro-Ethylene) and DDD (Dichloro-Diphenyl-Dichloroethane), caused the shells of bird eggs to become thinner, thereby leading to an increased incidence of egg breakage and/or embryo death. This, Carson postulated, would severely interfere with bird reproduction and ultimately would lead to a “silent spring” bereft of the familiar sounds of birdsongs
She also stated that the overall rise in U.S. cancer rates between 1940 (the dawn of the DDT era) and 1960 proved that DDT was a carcinogen. She predicted that DDT and other pesticides would spark a cancer epidemic that would wipe out “practically 100 percent” of the human population
After seven months of hearings in 1971, which produced 125 witnesses and 9,362 pages of testimony, EPA Judge Edmund Sweeney concluded that according to the evidence:
DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man … is not a mutagenic or teratogenic hazard to man … [and the] use of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds or other wildlife.
The banning of the use of DDT has caused great harm to their precious “environment” because supposedly “organic” agriculture, campaigns against improved genetically engineered crops, and the production of biofuels require extra land, which has to come from th clearing native reserves, with harm to the native birds, The cost of food is increased and so world poverty,
The withdrawal of DDT is thought to have caused the deaths of an extra 50 million victims of malaria,
In September 2006 the WHO announced that it would thenceforth actively support indoor spraying of the chemical as a prevention of malaria “not only in epidemic areas but also in areas with constant and high malaria transmission, including throughout Africa.” “The scientific and programmatic evidence clearly supports this reassessment,” said Dr. Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, WHO assistant director-general for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. “DDT presents no health risk when used properly.”
Elaborating on this theme, the WHO issued a statement asserting that DDT “provides the most effective, cheapest, and safest means of abating and eradicating” infectious diseases like malaria and typhus, which “may have killed half of all the people that ever lived.”
The following table lists the consequences of this decision
It shows that 18 countries are now either making use of DDT or planning to do so.
WORLD DYNAMICS AND LIMITS TO GROWTH
The United Nations conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in June 1972 (Secretary-General Maurice F. Strong), was dominated by the sensation that had been caused by the publication of two books, World Dynamics by Jay W. Forrester (Wright-Allen Press, Cambridge Mass. USA 1971) and Limits to Growth by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jφrgen Randers and William W. Behrens III (New York, Universe Books, and London, Earth Island, 1972)
Forrester was a systems-dynamics analyst, Professor of Management at the Alfred P. Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He devised an early computer model intended to simulate the world responses to environmental change. His parameters were population, resources, pollution, capital and agriculture. Fig 1 shows the multitude of feedback loops , from which he derived his. World 2 model.
Figure 1, Feedback Loops (Forrester 1973)
His book actually lists all the equations he used, taking up only two pages, a modest list by today’s standards. Fig 2 shows the main predictions of the standard run of his model, where decline is caused by depletion of resources. Steadily increasing resource costs inhibit industrial growth. This has the effect of lowering standards and causing population to decline. Pollution plays no part here, unless the resource or capital declines are inoperative. Note that the population decline is scheduled from 2020, and the quality of life declines from 1950.
The trick is to ignore the lessons of history, which show how human progress is dependent of human ingenuity. If this disappears disaster obviously follows.
THE POPULATION BOMB
Paul R Erlich The Population Bomb (Ballantine 1971) and The Population Explosion .(with Ann H Erlich, Simon and Schuster 1990) have publicised the belief that the world’s population is too large and is exceeding its resources
Malthus claimed that, if unrestrained, population will increase exponentially. But all organisms are restrained by the struggles of evolution with other organisms. Population of any organism depends on success in finding food, coping with predators, and ingenuity in expanding territory. Human population increase is closely related to success in all of these factors,
Much is made of the current increases in human population but little attention is paid to its lack of uniformity.
The above map shows that fertility rates in most developed countries are currently below the level needed to replace the present population. In undeveloped countries, particularly most of Central Africa and a part of India, fertility rates are above the ability of the local economy to provide support for them.
Population programmes depend on the locality. They need to concentrate on encouragement for childbearing in advanced countries but for Cenral Africa and part of India there is a need for contraceptive advice, empowerment of women, and industrial development .
DEPLETION OF RESOURCES
Ehrlich and others believed the Earth’s resources were becoming scarcer.Expanding population uses them at an increased rate. Therefore he predicted that theprices of these resources should increase. In 1980 Julian L Simon offered Ehrlich a bet. Ehrlich could choose any five raw materials he wanted. Simon sold Ehrlich an option to buy an amount of each raw material worth $200 in 1980 dollars. If the prices increased over the next ten years, Simon would pay Ehrlich; however, if the prices decreased over the same time period, Ehrlich would have to pay Simon.
Ehrlich chose five metals: copper, chrome, nickel, tin and tungsten. The bet was on. Ten years later, after adjusting for inflation, just as predicted, the prices of all five metals went down. Ehrlich had lost. He sent Simon a check and nothing else. Simon offered to bet again and up the ante to $20,000; Ehrlich declined.
Those who are capable of believing that the world is static and has a fixed amount of resources are also capable of believing that a static population will steadily deplete: the ”resources and decline to zero.
Fortunately the real world constantly changes. What constitutes resources also changes, related to the requirements of society, and its ingenuity on meeting them.
The following figures are from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2013 (http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/pdf/statistical-review/statistical_review_of_world_energy_2013.pdf
show how the proved resources of various forms of energy have changed
Despite the persistent claims that the oil and gas resources are falling they have a permanent tendency to keep on increasing. Hydro is also increasing and nuclear power is now being planned to increase
WATER SHORTAGE
All organisms need water. Heat from the sun evaporates it, mainly from the oceans , and deposits it as rain, hail, snow. dew and frost Since most precipitation on land originated from the oceans. a steady bonus is supplied by the climate to the land. Some may fill or replenish natural aquifers. .The surplus flows from rivers back to the sea.
Potable water is need for drinking and cooking, Water is also needed for crops, cleaning, sewage disposal. Human settlements have always been chosen from local accessibility to water. Human expansion has needed measures to ensure reliability of supply. The Romans pioneered the construction of reservoirs pipelines drainage and aqueducts.
Today their example pervades the world, and there is the addition of the possibility of desalinating sea water, now practised by 25 different countries.
right that is available free, but supply costs money, which has to come from somewhere, to an extent that depends on location and time of year. All claims of water shortage can be met by the availability of finance, but this truth is somehow often ignored.
Many current problems arise from reluctance to maintain, modernize or expand pipelines, reservoirs or water treatment plants to meet increases in demand. Campaigns to conserve water or limit its use are easier to do than find or spend the money to increase services Some recent floods in Britain were caused by neglect of drainage, recommended by environmentalists, supposedly to benefit endangered species.
THE GLOBAL WARMING SCAM AND CLIMATE CHANGE SWINDLE
There is no question that the most successful scam ever perpetrated by the environmental movement is the claim that the climate is entirely controlled by human emissions of carbon dioxide and other minor trace gases. This Newsletter will eventually become part of my new book of the above title which is now in progress.
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