Archive for the ‘Alarmism’ Category
November 22, 2012
Rational thinking still can prevail over alarmist hyperbole.
It is heartening to see that the European Parliament – which is not my favourite institution – has rejected a moratorium on the exploitation of shale gas and has approved the right of each member state to decide for itself on shale gas exploitation. It has been “green” fanaticism and the environmentalists propensity for myopic adhesion to ideology which has caused Europe to forget the simple reality that “the lower the cost of energy the greater the growth”.
On 20th November the EU Parliament debated reports
(more…)
Tags:Energy, European Parliament, European Union, Poland, Shale gas
Posted in Alarmism, Energy, European Union | 2 Comments »
November 21, 2012
I am rather suspicious of the enthusiasm with which influensa vaccination programs are pushed by some (including the WHO). The manufacture and sale of flu vaccines is enormously lucrative. Just in the UK the program costs £120 million every year. Worldwide just influensa vaccine sales are an estimated $4 – 5 billion. The total vaccines market is expected to grow from about $30 billion in 2012 to about $40 billion in 2015! For adult vaccines the biggest growth comes from public health programs pushing influensa vaccines:
Driving that growth is an increasing acceptance of adult vaccines and the public health focus on flu prevention, …… world sales of adult vaccines reached $12.5B in 2010, up from $10.1B in 2009 largely on strong growth of influenza vaccines. ….
….. Most vaccine revenues are earned by five companies: Sanofi Pasteur, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co., Pfizer, and Novartis. They held nearly 80% of the market as of 2010.
The names of the members of the committees which recommend wholesale flu vaccinations are often shrouded in secrecy and often – when revealed – are found to have unhealthy ties to the manufacturers of the vaccines.
Something smells!
The Independent takes up the issue:
The flu vaccine given to millions of people each year in Britain is “over-promoted” and “over-hyped” and the protection it offers against the seasonal illness has been exaggerated, scientists claim. Flu causes thousands of deaths, mainly among the elderly, in the UK each year but the vaccine is of limited effectiveness, especially for older people. One expert told The Independent the Government should be held accountable for “wasting taxpayer’s money” on the annual £120m national vaccination campaign. ….
… A report published by the Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, US, says the misperception that existing flu vaccines are highly effective has become a barrier to developing new and better vaccines. It also risks undermining public trust in mass immunisation campaigns if Governments fail to tell the truth about the vaccine. ….
…… Flu vaccine has to be re-formulated every year on the basis of an educated guess by experts who attempt to match it with the strains of the rapidly mutating flu virus likely to be circulating that season.
A 2010 review by the highly respected Cochrane Collaboration, an international network of experts, concluded that the vaccine had little impact in years, like the winter of 2011-12, when the vaccine and the viruses were mismatched.
On average, flu vaccine shortened the illness by about half a day but did not reduce the number of people hospitalised, it said. …….
Tags:Alarmism, Flu Symptoms, Influenza vaccine, Vaccine
Posted in Alarmism, Medicine | 1 Comment »
November 19, 2012
Just in time for the COP 18 meetings in Doha, the Potsdam Institute has produced – for the World Bank – the most apalling mish-mash of baseless fear-mongering I have seen for a long time (one could say that being from Potsdam it is only to be expected). Much about increasing emissions but nothing about the broken link between carbon dioxide and temperature. This is Alarmism at its worst.
Why a 4°C warmer world must be avoided (Summary pdf)
Tags:Alarmism, climate change, COP18, Doha, global warming, Potsdam, World Bank
Posted in Alarmism, Climate | Comments Off on Potsdam Institute for the World Bank showcases alarmism at it its very worst
November 17, 2012
In spite of all the headlines about the dearth of Arctic ice it seems that polar bears are not too worried. They are heading out onto the rapidly growing ice in a “mass exodus” to hunt for their seals about a week ahead of schedule.
Polar Bear Science reports that:
It appears from the ice maps that most of the polar bears throughout the world that have chosen to remain on land during the late summer and fall (about July/August through October/November) can now return to the ice. …
… polar bear watchers in and around Churchill Manitoba (in Western Hudson Bay) are reporting an exodus of polar bears to the sea ice that is rapidly forming offshore. While it appears from the ice map …. that only a narrow strip of sea ice has formed close to shore, this is apparently quite enough for the bears to move off the land and out to sea. Once on the ice, polar bears will start hunting for seals.
The same phenomenon is likely true all over the Arctic – ice forming near shore may not be showing up on the satellite images (e.g. western Russia, Svalbard) but it will be enough to get polar bears off land and back out to sea where they can hunt. ….
…. Kelsey says that the “bay froze about a week earlier than last year” [earlier is good] and reports that polar bears are eagerly moving offshore onto the newly-formed ice. Sounds like the folks there to promote “Polar Bear Week” won’t find many bears to point cameras at.
Polar Bear Alley also reports:
This whole season has been about a week ahead of last year so it is not a real surprise that the bay froze about a week earlier than last year. Yesterday, we watched the mass exodus of polar bears out onto the sea ice. Most of the day consisted of yellow bear butts wobbling and weaving out towards the floe edge.
Over the past week, there have been daily highs around minus 10-15C and some fairly consistent north winds. This combination is all we need for the ice to freeze along Cape Churchill. From wind and greasy waves last Thursday to a thin band of ice along the shore by Saturday, you could see the end was near.
Most years though a late season south wind ‘saves’ bear season but this wind arrived about a day or two late this year, the ice is now locked in from what I can see. By Monday, ice floes clung to the shore and the smaller bays near Churchill were almost locked in. A north wind that night and the next day then sealed the deal.
Yesterday, there was a constant stream of polar bears crossing Cape Merry, the point between town and the Churchill River. Polar Bear Alert officers hazed some of them to speed their departure but really, once the ice is here, there is not much incentive to stay around. By 3pm, you could see twelve bears out on the ice between Eskimo Point to the west and Miss Piggy beach. ……
Tags:Arctic, Churchill Manitoba, Hudson Bay, Polar bear, Polar ice packs, Sea ice
Posted in Alarmism, Arctic, Wildlife | Comments Off on Polar bears heading out onto rapidly forming Arctic sea ice
November 17, 2012
Hot on the heels of the report that the IPCC has not been invited to the COP18 meeting in Doha later this month comes this report that the US is trying to funnel large parts of what is to be discussed at Doha into other forums and effectively bypass and undermine the UNFCCC
Could it be the US and China and India and other non-European countries who are disillusioned with the IPCC, are responsible for the snub?
EurAktiv reports:
The US is considering a funnel of substantive elements of the Doha Climate Summit away from the UN framework and into the Major Economies Forum (MEF), a platform of the world’s largest CO2 emitters, EurActiv has learned.
Since 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has provided an umbrella for talks to curb global greenhouse gas emissions, and on 26 November, will host the COP18 Climate Summit in Qatar.
But it has been confirmed to EurActiv that Washington is increasingly looking to shift policy action to the MEF whose members account for some 85% of global emissions, and which the US views as a more comfortable venue for agreeing climate goals.
If the idea gains traction, it could demote the UNFCCC to a forum for discussing the monitoring, reporting and verification of emissions reductions projects, sources say. …
…… The MEF is a successor to the Major Economies Meetings set up by President Bush, and criticised by several governments for undermining the UN process.
Its participants include: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Tags:climate change, COP18, MEF, UNFCCC, United States
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Politics, UN, US | 1 Comment »
November 17, 2012
UPDATE: This email from IPCC at Revkin’s site seems to confirm that they are not officially invited but will be present anyway (at whose cost?) to provide a “background briefing for media”! Just in case the media cannot get their stories right “when they come to write about AR5“!!
Pachauri and the IPCC have apparently not been invited to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP18/CMP8) which is to be held in Doha from November 26th to December 7th. Pachauri has been talking to the press in Doha and seems very aggrieved. His press interview seems like he is almost begging for an invitation. He’s already in Doha so maybe he could just gatecrash the event!!
It could just be a secretarial oversight or it could be an intentional snub by the UN for a discredited organisation or it could be the UN expressing its displeasure for the manner in which the IPCC preens itself and usurps the UN’s own perceived role. Or it could be that some of the key countries attending plan to question or reject the IPCC’s findings and just don’t want them around.
My guess is that some way will be found for Pachauri to save some face.
The Gulf Times (Bonnie James) reports:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will not be attending the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP18/CMP8) in Doha, chairman Dr Rajendra K Pachauri has said.
“For the first time in the 18 years of COP, the IPCC will not be attending, because we have not been invited,” he told Gulf Times in Doha. ……
……. Dr Pachauri first hinted about his ‘anticipated absence’ at COP18, while speaking at the opening session of the International Conference on Food Security in Dry Lands (FSDL) on Wednesday at Qatar University.
Later, he told Gulf Times he did not know why the IPCC has not been invited to COP18, something that has happened never before.
“I don’t know what it is. The executive secretary of the climate change secretariat has to decide. I have attended every COP and the chairman of the IPCC addresses the COP in the opening session,” he explained.
Tags:climate change, COP18, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, Rajendra K. Pachauri, United Nations
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, UN | 2 Comments »
November 14, 2012
The reserves are massive but not yet technologically exploitable. I have little doubt that human ingenuity will prevail and before too long. It is just a matter of time and engineering before this oil starts flowing.
Malthusians must be gnashing their teeth as “Peak Oil” is pushed back – again – by a few hundred years!!
ABC News:
Drillers in Utah and Colorado are poking into a massive shale deposit trying to find a way to unlock oil reserves that are so vast they would swamp OPEC.
A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated that if half of the oil bound up in the rock of the Green River Formation could be recovered it would be “equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.”
Both the GAO and private industry estimate the amount of oil recoverable to be 3 trillion barrels.
“In the past 100 years — in all of human history — we have consumed 1 trillion barrels of oil. There are several times that much here,” said Roger Day, vice president for operations for American Shale Oil (AMSO).
The Green River drilling is beginning as shale mining is booming in the U.S. and a report by the International Energy Agency predicts that the U.S. will become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020. That flood of oil can have major implications for the U.S. economy as well as the country’s foreign policy which has been based on a growing scarcity of oil. …..
The cost of extracting the Green River oil at the moment would be higher than what it could be sold for. And there are significant environmental obstacles. ….. Nevertheless, the federal government has authorized six experimental drilling leases on federal land in an effort to find a way to tap into the riches of the Green River Formation. …….
Getting oil from Green River shale is a different proposition than getting gas and oil from other sites by using the controversial method of “fracking,” fracturing the underground rock with pressurized, chemical-infused water.
The hydrocarbons in Green River shale are more intimately bound up with the rock, so that fracking cannot release them. The shale has to be heated to 5,000 degrees Farenheit before it will give up its oil. ….
Tags:Green River Formation, Oil reserves, OPEC, Peak oil, shale oil, United States
Posted in Alarmism, Energy, Engineering, Oil, Technology, US | 2 Comments »
November 12, 2012
It was inevitable of course, but the real problem is that the EU is only backing down as a political necessity but continues to maintain its self-righteous, religiously fanatic and quite unintelligent attitude. In any event the tax on airlines for carbon dioxide emissions was doomed to failure after the US, China and India expressed their clear opposition and banned their airlines from complying with the arrogant and grandiose EU directive. To save some face for the EU it’s so-called Climate Commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, (a modern day King Canute) has only suspended the measure for one year but I see no possibility of it ever coming back in the foreseeable future. She does tend to see herself as a pious knight in shining armour holding back the evil forces of climate change but she would be better occupied in tilting against the plague of windmills disfiguring most of Europe.
BBC:
The European Union has agreed to suspend its rules that require airlines flying to and from airports in the EU to pay for their carbon emissions. The rules had been unpopular with countries outside Europe such as the US, China and India.
Climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said she had proposed “stopping the clock for one year”.
Tags:airline carbon tax, European Commission, European Union
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Europe, European Union | Comments Off on EU backs down on its stupid carbon tax for airlines
November 9, 2012
The various catastrophe scenarios based on the depletion of a limited resource (peak-oil, peak-gas, peak-energy, peak-food……….) have a fundamental weakness – they fail to account for human ingenuity and technological advance. History has shown that such Malthusian scenarios just do not come to pass. New discoveries change the availability of the resource, innovation and technology find alternatives and economics changes pricing and the supply/demand dynamics.
Moving peaks
In February this year I posted:
In recent times the development of fracking technology and the discovery of huge deposits of gas-bearing shales together with the discovery of new deep-sea sources of natural gas have pushed the “peak” for gas production beyond the visible horizon and into the distant future (a few hundred years). When – rather than if – methane hydrates become available for gas production, the “peak” will shift further into the future.
Reuters now reports on Opec’s latest World Oil Outlook
OPEC acknowledged for the first time on Thursday that technology for extracting oil and gas from shale is changing the global supply picture significantly ……
In its annual World Oil Outlook, OPEC cut its forecast of global oil demand to 2016 due to economic weakness and also increased its forecast of supplies from countries outside the 12-nation exporters’ group.
“Given recent significant increases in North American shale oil and shale gas production, it is now clear that these resources might play an increasingly important role in non-OPEC medium- and long-term supply prospects,” the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in the report.
OPEC has been slower than some to acknowledge the impact that new technologies such as hydraulic fracturing – known as “fracking” – may have on supply.
Tags:"Peak" gas, Hydraulic fracturing, Oil & Gas, OPEC, Peak oil, Technology, World Oil Outlook
Posted in Alarmism, Energy, Oil, Technology | Comments Off on “Peak Oil” vanishes and even OPEC bows to shale fracking technology
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