The Monarch Butterflies are threatened, no doubt about that. Well-meaning groups, like LMF (http://www.livemonarch.com) are grassroots efforts to encourage gardeners to grow milkweed plants, the monarchs’ predominant food source. 

The crucial question though has not been asked: why is the milkweed plant rapidly disappearing?

Some Ideas

Some people think the use of genetically modified (GM) corn that is the source of the problem. They think that herbicides applied to GM corn prevent the growth of errant milkweed plants in corn fields. I don’t think so. The milkweed rate of growth is much less than that of corn and the monarchs would rarely have found the few errant milkweed plants in a multi-acre corn field prior to the introduction of GM corn.

Another idea is the habitat destruction of the monarchs’ wintering grounds in Mexico through encroaching settlements. Mexico has been taking steps to prevent that but, perhaps, needs to do more in that respect. 

I worked for the U.S. EPA from 1979 to 2004, spending most of my time with the program dealing with pesticides. 

It did not take me long to figure out that the EPA was reeling from the scandal of the Industrial Bio-test Laboratory, IBT. People would whisper in the corridors about fake lab studies. They would wonder aloud about the safety of our food.

IBT was the country’s largest testing lab from the 1950s to 1970s. Taking advantage of the legal requirements for animal studies for the licensing of drugs and chemicals, IBT became a huge national business, testing about 40 percent of America’s drugs, pesticides and other chemicals.

Animal studies, morally repugnant in many cases, when done honestly, reveal the danger or potential for harm of the substances fed the experimental animals — mice, rats, rabbits and dogs. If the animal develops cancer from eating a farm spray in its food, watch out: Humans would probably become cancer victims from eating food treated with that chemical.

Government regulators are crippled and blind without that picture or with a fake picture. Their decisions are then no better than the actions of witch doctors or executioners. The entire society becomes the real guinea pig for the perpetual stream of toxins of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

IBT did that for more than 25 years. Until 1976 when a government pathologist uncovered its gangsterism, IBT was the chemical and pharmaceutical industries’ dirty grocery store, enabling them and agribusiness to sell hazardous drugs and food to the American people.

Professor Ian Plimer has never been renowned for moderation in his opinions about the extremist elements of the green movement and in this book he launches on them in a full-blooded, broken-bottle attack.

In his own words: “What started as a ­laudable movement to prevent the despoilation of certain areas of natural beauty has morphed into an authoritarian, anti-progress, anti-democratic, anti-human monster.” That Plimer should attack the greens is no surprise. More impressive is the book’s foreword, written by Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, who fully ­supports Plimer.

He congratulates Plimer for a book that provides a “different . . . and extremely rational look at the agenda of the green movement today”. “In many respects, they have become a combination of extreme political ideology and religious fundamentalism rolled into one,” Moore says.

“There is no better example of this than the fervent belief in human-caused ­catastrophic climate change.” Moore even rejects the core green belief that carbon dioxide emissions are harmful.

Plimer’s thesis is that the real agenda of green groups (often registered as charities) is nothing less than the destruction of modern civilisation and that a key aim is to kneecap the global energy industry which provides society with electricity. It has always seemed odd that greens are so hostile to a gas which is vital for the life of trees. As a trained geologist, Plimer is well aware that the planet’s climate has been changing since its birth 4½ billion years ago. “If the Earth’s climate did not constantly change, then I would be really worried,” he says.

Denmark: 1,600 animals were born prematurely at a mink farm this month. Many had deformities, and most were dead on arrival. The lack of eyeballs was the most common malformation. Veterinarians ruled out food and viruses as possible causes. The only thing different at the farm since last year has been the installation of four large wind turbines only 328 meters away. 

The wind farm consists of four 3 MW turbines, VESTAS model V112, reaching out to 140 meters in height at the tip of the blades. When they became operative last fall, a first mishap was reported by the mink farmer, who was heard about it at a parliamentary committee on wind farms in January this year (1). The World Council for Nature (WCFN) reported the incident earlier: “In Denmark, which is the EU’s leader in mink farming, millions of Danish kroners were lost in damaged pelts when wind turbines started to operate near a mink farm. The animals became aggressive, attacking one another, and resulting in many deaths” (2).

Both incidents are alarming, as they constitute definite proof that wind turbines are harmful to the health of animals living in their vicinity.

It appears that climate change hysteria has even infiltrated the British Medical Association, the BMA. A recent article in the Student BMJ by Julian Sheather, the BMA’s Deputy Head of Ethics, shows such a stunning lack of knowledge and groupthink, that it is frightening to think these people are supposed to be in charge of our health. 

The article is titled “MEDICINE AND CLIMATE CHANGE – Do doctors have special moral responsibilities?”, but unfortunately it is under copyright. It can though be read here. (The full article can be accessed by free registration).

But when I tell you the opening paragraph mentions “perfect moral storm”, “outright deniers”, “John Kerry” and “catastrophic”, you will probably get the idea!

Use of the phrase, “outright deniers”, clearly shows he has utterly failed to understand what the debate on climate change is all about. He then compounds this by quoting John Kerry, as if any politician is automatically trustworthy!

Society expects doctors, as much as other scientists, to be objective, be concerned only with the facts and continually question. It would appear that Sheather has done none of these things, and instead simply parrots the official line.

Discover magazine is warning us of the next calamity to hit the globe, namely fading insects, specifically light-colored dragon flies. Not only are the insects’ colors fading, their numbers may be doomed as well. According to a new study published in the journal Nature Communications by scientists from several universities in Europe, Christie Wilcox reports “of all the species affected by climate change, the insects should be more feared for than any other group.”

You wouldn’t know that when you are outdoors at a time when the blackflies and mosquito larvae hatch from their water-stage into full-winged airborne little pests looking for your blood.  Not even a contingent of well-armed Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers could keep them at bay, as Royal visitors to Canada’s northlands experienced. But it’s not just humans the insects pursue, native wildlife like deer and moose can also be driven crazy when the bloodsuckers emerge en masse. That’s when you need dragonflies.

Two primary arguments are put forward as ways of justifying various economicschemes for reducing oil and gas use (e.g., carbon pricing by way of taxes, subsidies for green energy, emissionstrading schemes):

(1) Anthropogenic catastrophic climate change will occur if humans do not reduce their use of fossil fuels and the associated greenhouse gas emissions that result from such activities.

(2) Peak global production of oil and gas has either occurred (or will imminently occur), and/or global peak reserves-to-production ratios for each carbon source have occurred (or will imminently occur).  Thus, humans must retool theireconomic systems in order to adjust to a near-term resource limitation induced post-carbon economy.

Issue (1) has already been dealt with on many well-known climate science skeptic sites.

Issue (2) is simply not supported by the data.

According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy dataset, the global proved reserves of oil have increased steadily since the dataset began in 1980.  Similarly, global oil production has increased steadily since the dataset begins in 1965, with an approximately linear increase since the early 1980s.

Dividing the global proved reserves for any given year by the global production rate for that year yields the R/P (reserves-to-production) ratio, which — as defined by BP — indicates where “[i]f the reserves remaining at the end of any year are divided by the production in that year, the result is the length of time that those remaining reserves would last if production were to continue at that rate.”  One has, for several decades now, heard jokes along the lines of “the end of oil is always 20 years away.”  Well, actually, the time period until the end of oil (using the global R/P ratio as the proxy) has been increasing steadily since 1980.

Russia will not import GMO products, the country’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said, adding that the nation has enough space and resources to produce organic food.

Moscow has no reason to encourage the production of genetically modified products or import them into the country, Medvedev told a congress of deputies from rural settlements on Saturday.

“If the Americans like to eat GMO products, let them eat it then. We don’t need to do that; we have enough space and opportunities to produce organic food,” he said.

The prime minister said he ordered widespread monitoring of the agricultural sector. He added that despite rather strict restrictions, a certain amount of GMO products and seeds have made it to the Russian market.

Earlier, agriculture minister Nikolay Fyodorov also stated that Russia should remain free of genetically modified products. At the end of February, the Russian parliament asked the government to impose a temporary ban on all genetically altered products in Russia.

Sensational discovery of 4000-year old chunks of wood at the edge of glaciers in Switzerland proves climate was warmer in the past than previously thought. Distinguished geologist, Professor Christian Schlüchter, condemns politically corrupt ‘man-made global warming’ scientists for covering up the game-changing find. 

P. Gosselin (notrickszone.com) reports (June 09, 2014):

This post is about an interview by the online Swiss Der Bund here with Swiss geology giant Christian Schlüchter titled: “Our society is fundamentally dishonest“. In it he criticizes climate science for its extreme tunnel vision and political contamination.

Geologist Sebastain Lüning sent me an e-mail where he writes: “This is probably the best interview from a geologist on climate change that I have read for a long while. My highest respect for Prof. Schlüchter.” Fritz Vahrenholt calls it “impressive”.

Hat-tip: Bernd Felsche and Wolfgang Neumann at Facebook.
Photo credit (Christian Schlüchter): University of Bern

His discovery of 4000-year old chunks of wood at the edge of glaciers in Switzerland in the 1990s unintentionally thrust the distinguished geologist into the lion’s den of climate science. Today the retired professor and author of more than 250 papers speaks up in an interview.

AUSTRALIA’S peak body of earth scientists has declared itself unable to publish a position statement on climate change due to the deep divisions within its membership on the issue. After more than five years of debate and two false starts, Geological Society of Australia president Laurie Hutton said a statement on climate change was too difficult to achieve. 

Mr Hutton said the issue “had the potential to be too divisive and would not serve the best interests of the society as a whole.”

The backdown, published in the GSA quarterly newsletter, is the culmination of two rejected position statements and years of furious correspondence among members. Some members believe the failure to make a strong statement on climate change is an embarrassment that puts Australian earth scientists at odds with their international peers.

It undermines the often cited stance that there is near unanimity among climate scientists on the issue.

GSA represents more than 2000 Australian earth scientists from academe, industry, government and research organisations.

A position statement published in 2009 said the society was concerned about the potentially harmful effects of carbon dioxide emissions and favoured “strong action to substantially reduce current levels’’.

“Of particular concern are the well-documented loading of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, which has been linked unequivocally to burning of fossil fuels, and the corresponding increase in average global temperature,’’ it said.

“Risks associated with these large-scale perturbations of the Earth’s fundamental life-support systems include rising sea level, harmful shifts in the acid balance of the oceans and long-term changes in local and regional climate and extreme weather events.”

Publication of the position statement caused an uproar among members and led to a revised statement, after wide consultation. The revised statement said: “Geological evidence clearly demonstrates that Earth’s climate system is inherently and naturally variable over timescales from decades to millions of years.

Come to fabulous Las Vegas to meet leading scientists from around the world who question whether “man-made global warming” will be harmful to plants, animals, or human welfare. Learn from top economists and policy experts about the real costs and futility of trying to stop global warming.

Meet the leaders of think tanks and grassroots organizations who are speaking out against global warming alarmism.

Don’t just wonder about global warming … understand it!

ICCC-9 takes place at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Rooms start at only $80 per night plus fees and taxes. Fly American or United and get a discount of up to 10{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}!

A preliminary schedule for the event is here.

Advocates for a return to a no nonsense empirical approach to the Big Questions in our Universe are making headway. Such critics of Big Bang, Black Hole, String Theory, etc say it is time to put away all the unproven and unprovable post normal pencil and paper theorisations. Instead, a rising tide of skeptics are demanding a wholesale re-think. Among their gripes is that for too long modern cosmology has done little more than the construct of an iffy Universe populated by equations and not provable science.

Dr Pierre R Latour (pictured), PhD Chemical Process Control Systems Engineer and registered Professional Engineer in Texas and California, shares that sentiment. His main focus is the similarly shaky post normal interpretation of how earth’s atmosphere works.

Dr Latour has been studying the cornerstone of climate science rationale – the so-called greenhouse gas theory, since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Among skeptics the ‘theory’ is regarded as wishywashy at best and as replete with conjecture and contradiction as is much of modern cosmology. Latour, on behalf of Principia Scientific International (PSI), was invited to give a talk on “Engineering Earth’s Thermostat with CO2?” at the Electric Universe 2014 Conference – All About Evidence, on March 24, 2014 and eloquently put the PSI case across. The impact of this conference and the compelling arguments presented, is currently reverberating throughout the independent global scientific community.

Dr Latour explains, using essential engineering requirements,  that any supposed earth thermostat is technically impossible – it cannot work and proved it never will.

Latour adds, “The Thunderbolts Project EU2014 Conference was interesting, informative and good fun. Most attendees were physicists from diverse backgrounds, skeptical of some mainstream consensus theoretical physics/astronomy.”

Fascinating to Latour and PSI was the overall theme of the project –  how electric field currents throughout the universe better match poorly explained observations like dark matter, black holes and Big Bang infinity points.

PSI’s Vice Chair is in solid agreement with others at the EU conference in arguing that the preponderance of matter in our Universe is disassociated ions and electrons, like stars, nebula and solar wind plasma – unlike zero charge atoms and molecules on Earth.

NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) has filmed some impressive footage of a coronal mass ejection (CME) – the first such footage to come from the “Small Explorer Mission” to examine the Sun’s lower atmosphere.

{youtube}f2o60P-8ZVg{/youtube}

Captured on 9 May, the video shows a “giant sheet of solar material” about “five Earths wide and about seven-and-a-half Earths tall” in the field of view. The agency elaborates: “The IRIS imagery focuses in on material of 30,000 kelvins at the base, or foot points, of the CME.

“The line moving across the middle of the movie is the entrance slit for IRIS’s spectrograph, an instrument that can split light into its many wavelengths – a technique that ultimately allows scientists to measure temperature, velocity and density of the solar material behind the slit.”

Since IRIS has to “commit to pointing at certain areas of the Sun at least a day in advance”, there was a certain amount of luck involved in getting the money shot. 

‘The Guardian’ newspaper (London) is giving prominence to a new global warming scare story that West Antarctic glaciers are now melting “past the point of no return.” But all is not as it seems in the article ‘Western Antarctic ice sheet collapse has already begun, scientists warn,’ (May 12, 2014).

This latest alarmist story hangs its hat on new research that shows an influx of warm sea water is permeating underneath where the glaciers extend into the sea, causing them to melt back. The inference is a human cause.  “A large sector of the western Antarctic ice sheet has gone into a state of irreversible retreat. It has passed the point of no return,” Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at Nasa and the University of California, Irvine, told a conference call. “This retreat will have major consequences for sea level rise worldwide.”

But Rignot and the newspaper fail to point out a crucial caveat that diminishes the credibility of their claims: the melt back cannot raise sea levels, as explained by independent researcher, Dr Bernie Gunn. Nor is it mentioned that volcanic activity in the region is an overrriding factor. Gunn posits this scenario:

“Suppose we have a horrendous increase in summer temperatures, warm water flows under the Ross Ice Shelf and thins it from its present thickness to, say 500ft. It would then be less able to resist cracking by northerly swells and the face could retreat by say a hundred miles. What is the effect going to be on world sea-levels? Absolutely none, as a floating body displaces its own weight of water, as that Greek fellow (Archimedes) realised when he was taking a bath.”  Dr Bernie Gunn

 So the floating glacial ice will not cause any sea level rise at all and the rest which has protruded into the sea and is melting at the “ground line” is also displacing its own weight in water so that can all melt back and the sea level remains unaffected.

You know all those resources we’re about to run out of? No, we aren’t. Among the more surprising things that the BBC revealed to us last week was that the UK was going to run out of coal within the next five years. Given that the island is pretty much built on a bed of coal, this is something of a puzzler. 

Controlled Nuclear Fusion (CNF) is the term used for harnessing the energy of hydrogen bombs in a peaceful and, most importantly, controlled way. If mankind can achieve that goal then there would be an unlimited amount of energy available on Earth. You could forget wood, coal, oil, natural gas, and all other energy sources in one fell swoop. They would rapidly become meaningless as minor energy providers of a historic past. How so?