Archive for the ‘Alarmism’ Category

Teacher Wang gets away with it!!

May 5, 2011

Following up from my previous post, it would seem that Teacher Wang need not fear new legal actions against his creative marketing techniques!!

From the Taipei Times:

The Central Weather Bureau yesterday said it would not pursue legal action against a doomsayer who claimed on his Web site that a magnitude 14 earthquake would hit Taiwan next month.

Freight containers converted into houses that are allegedly to be used by followers of “Teacher Wang” stand in Puli, Nantou County: Photo: AFP/Sam YEH

The bureau said the individual, known as “Teacher Wang” (王), had written on his blog that based on his reading of the Chinese classic I Ching (易經) — also known as the Book of Changes — the super earthquake would hit at 10:42:37am on May 11.

He also claimed that a tsunami would hit on May 17 that could generate a wave as high as 170m.

Some media picked up Wang’s claims and a TV station interviewed him about his “research,” the bureau said.

After Wang’s Web post, some of his followers in Puli (埔里), Nantou County, began building about 170 shelters converted from cargo containers, the Apple Daily reported. Wang also claimed that millions of people would die in the cataclysm.

Wang advised people to stay in cargo containers, which he said would be safer than regular buildings, the paper said, also quoting construction workers as saying that they were rushing to finish by early next month.

To counter what it characterized as groundless claims, the bureau dismissed Wang’s comments as “nonsense” and had initially planned to fine Wang and the blog service provider for allowing Wang to publish comments in violation of the Meteorological Act (氣象法).

The act makes the bureau the only government body allowed to issue weather forecasts or warnings of hazardous meteorological and seismological phenomena. Article 24 of the act stipulates that people who report on such matters without securing permission from the bureau can be fined between NT$200,000 (US$6,973) and NT$1 million.

However, the bureau decided not to impose a fine on either after the blog operator voluntarily removed Wang’s comments.

However, the bureau said it would continue to monitor Wang’s comments.

“Doomsday coming on 11th May – Buy a container only $5500”

May 3, 2011
Taipei 101 as seen from Sun Yat-sen Memorial H...

Taipei 101: Image via Wikipedia

Teacher Wang predicts that a magnitude 14 earthquake and a 170 m tsunami are going to devastate Taiwan on May 11th and cut the island in two.

The Taipei 101 skyscraper and the Presidential Office will be destroyed he warns.  The only way for people to save themselves is by buying a container fitted for electricity, heating and air-conditioning and placing it in the hills beyond the reach of the coming tsunami. Each such container costs around $5500.

More than 100 such containers have been sold so far!!

Teacher Wang sounds more like an inspired marketing manager and less a doomsday prophet.

So far the police have not been able to find him.

From the BBC:

Police in Taiwan are investigating a self-proclaimed prophet whose doomsday warnings on a blog have caused panic. The man, identifying himself as Teacher Wang, said Taiwan would be struck by a magnitude-14 earthquake and 170m (560ft) high tsunami on 11 May. More than 100 cargo containers have been bought and set up in a mountainous area of central Taiwan.

Police said they were investigating if the blogger had conspired with a container business to defraud people. 

Taiwan’s famous Taipei 101 skyscraper and the Presidential Office building would be toppled, he warned.

More than 100 cargo containers have been discovered in the town of Puli, Nantou county. Workers had been hired to fit them with doors, windows and air conditioning, says the BBC’s Cindy Sui in Taipei. The containers cost about $5,500 (£3,300) each, once water and electricity are included, our correspondent adds.

Taiwan is in a quake zone. In 1999 a 7.6-magnitude tremor killed more than 2,400 people and damaged 50,000 buildings. But Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau says there is no basis for the doomsday prediction, since a magnitude-14 tremor is unheard of, and quakes cannot be reliably predicted.

Officials say Japan’s recent devastating quake and tsunami may have led fraudsters to exploit people’s fears. The police have not been able to trace “Teacher Wang”, who had touted his theory to TV reporters but insisted his face not be shown. The authorities have removed his doomsday warnings from the internet. 

Fraud convictions carry a maximum five-year jail term while breaking the law on social order is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000, said Taiwanese police. “Teacher Wang” suggested people live in such containers to survive the disaster, which he said would kill millions of people and split the island in half.

Teacher Wang may be just another despicable fraud but he has confirmed that the gullibility of humans is unlimited and he has brightened my day! A $1000 fine with the return of the containers and the purchase price sounds like an appropriate penalty.

And while he may be a little less sophisticated he is much less dangerous than the Global Warming doomsday merchants who are milking billions of carbon trading dollars! If only Teacher Wang had linked everything to Global Warming he may have even been granted tenure at Penn State University……

Workers modify freight containers that are being converted into houses in Puli, central Nantou county on 28 April 2011

The survival containers: photo AFP

Here come the health-fascists – now an obesity tax!!

April 28, 2011

The world is full of “do-gooders” who in the name of the good of the majority indulge in introducing new and wonderful ways of oppressing the minority. The environmental and health fascists who use coercive means – usually taxes and the banning of substances and even the behaviour  of others – have converted the oppression of those who don’t think as they do into a fine art.

The two latest health-fascists are members of a so-called expert group, Dan Andersson and Anna Fransson who want to tax people for being fat – for their own good and the good of society of course.

And to rub salt into the wound,  tax-payer’s money is used to generate this rubbish.

Svenska Dagbladet reports:

To stop the runaway cost of Swedish obesity a “fat tax” should be introduced,  according to a new report “Calories Cost” released by the Expert Group on Public Finance (ESO) on Thursday and written by Dan Andersson and Anna Fransson

They estimate that the cost to the public sector, in terms of healthcare and social insurance due to obesity was 15 billion kronor in 2003, a figure that could rise by between 40 and about 80 percent by 2020, according to the report.

 The authors consider that there are good reasons for the government to do something about the weight trap. “Fat taxes” could be invested in, for example, bike lanes and general public health surveys of adults.

Health costs could be minimised further by introducing a birth tax and perhaps with the tax increasing for every year of survival. This could even encourage people to commit suicide once they retire and their  economic burden becomes too heavy – for the good of the majority of course. It would solve the pensions problem and the ageing problem as well.

Perhaps it is time to introduce legislation prohibiting the fascism of “do-gooders” and banning all expert groups.

Energy saving light bulbs are not so friendly after all

April 26, 2011
Modern fluorescent light bulb with E27 thread ...

Image via Wikipedia

From The Telegraph:

Fears have been reignited about the safety of energy saving light bulbs after a group of scientists warned that they contain cancer causing chemicals.

Their report advises that the bulbs should not be left on for extended periods, particularly near someone’s head, as they emit poisonous materials when switched on. Peter Braun, who carried out the tests at the Berlin’s Alab Laboratory, said: “For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment.”

The bulbs are already widely used in the UK following EU direction to phase out traditional incandescent lighting by the end of this year. But the German scientists claimed that several carcinogenic chemicals and toxins were released when the environmentally-friendly compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were switched on, including phenol, naphthalene and styrene. Andreas Kirchner, of the Federation of German Engineers, said: “Electrical smog develops around these lamps. “I, therefore, use them only very economically. They should not be used in unventilated areas and definitely not in the proximity of the head.” ……

The latest report follows claims by Abraham Haim, a professor of biology at Haifa University in Israel, that the bulbs could result in higher breast cancer rates if used late at night.

He said that the bluer light that CFLs emitted closely mimicked daylight, disrupting the body’s production of the hormone melatonin more than older-style filament bulbs, which cast a yellower light.

The Migraine Action Association has warned that they could trigger migraines and skin care specialists have claimed that their intense light could exacerbate a range of existing skin problems.

Related: 

Bring back my incandescent light bulb!

A reprieve for incandescent bulbs? 


Parrakeet to be eliminated from the wild: So much for bio-diversity

April 25, 2011

A case of alarmism vs. alarmism.

That the clamour for protection of biodiversity is just so much alarmist nonsense becomes obvious from this report. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds apparently supports this action to eliminate a species from the wild even though it has not yet caused any damage!

Bio-diversity alarm always takes second place if any species poses even the slightest threat – real or perceived – to the human species. 

From the BBC:

Monk parakeet

A species of parakeet that threatens wildlife and crops is to be removed from the wild, the government has said. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the monk parakeet, originally from South America, was an invasive species.

It announced control measures to either rehouse the birds, remove their nests, or – as a last resort – shoot them. Defra estimates there are around 100 of the green-and-yellow birds in the UK, mainly in the south east of England. 

Although the species had not yet caused any damage, Defra said they had the potential to threaten “national infrastructure”. It said extensive damage to crops had been reported in both North and South America, and the birds could cause power cuts when their nests were built on electricity pylons, particularly when they become wet from rain.

…..

A spokesman for the RSPB, the bird conservation group, said: “Our understanding is that they are going to be brought into captivity; we don’t see it’s necessary for them to be culled. “We’re happy action is taking place in that they’re being removed from the wild.

“It’s a small population at large, as the birds are colonial and are concentrated in one or two sites, so it will be possible to deal with as we think it could be a problem.”


A lack of courage in environmentalism today

April 20, 2011
Blue Marble composite images generated by NASA...

Image via Wikipedia

In the style of E Belfort Bax in his book “Courage” from 1890 I take courage to be “the subordination of fear to purpose”.  On this line connecting fear and actions then cowardice is when fears dominate the actions and “purpose” is subordinated.

Once upon a time, the environmentalists were a courageous lot and were surely instrumental in the cleaning up of many areas from the effects of real pollution (smoke, dust, wastes, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides, food additives …..). But the simple virtues of keeping things clean and preventing disease and improving the standard of living for humans has given way to the more pompous and pretentious goals of preventing global warming (an unbridled arrogance), of maintaining bio-diversity (and why is this important?) and of preserving “scarce resources due to the “limits to growth” (with scare scenarios of “peak” oil, “peak” coal, food shortages, water shortages, metal shortages  and so on). The environmental movement has become a mish-mash of “do-gooders”, amateur scientists and cult members whose primary weapon has become an imposition of draconian measures for uncertain goals. A sort of eco-fascism.

These goals have even become an acceptable political line and have led to what can only be called the politics of alarmism where fears – and most are imaginary fears – dominate all actions. These fears can never be disproved because they always lie a few generation in the future. But they lead to a world where the emphasis has shifted to telling people what not to do (ostensibly for their own good) because of some fear or the other  rather than to having goals for the uplifting of living standards and the actions to be taken in spite of the fears that may exist.

Inevitably the politics of alarmism are accompanied by the opportunists whose greed leads to all the scams surrounding environmental subsidies for renewable power or for carbon trading. But similar scams would appear with any line of politics and I don’t think that the environmental scamsters are any worse than the real estate bubble developers or the sub-prime mortgage supporters or the inside traders or the operators of Ponzi schemes. These scams just reflect the state of ethics that prevail and are not particularly tied to any specific politics.

But I find it a pity that the simple goals of cleaning up the world we live in has given way to the environmentalism of today which generates the politics of alarmism – which is not just a political line without courage – but actually becomes a line of cowardice when it seeks to impose limitations on what others  may not do.

Related: “The Red Badge of Courage” in Essence of a Manager

Media coverage dies as work resumes at Fukushima Dai-ichi – steam plumes did not raise radiation levels

March 22, 2011

Fukushima hysteria dies down as the media find that their alarmist and sensational reporting is not going to be sustainable.

Perhaps they will return their attention and their headlines to the victims of the earthquake and the tsunami in between the bombing raids on Tripoli.

As George Monbiot puts it in The Guardian:

As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.

A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.

Now George Monbiot’s views about energy in general, and renewables in particular, are usually quite ridiculous and ill thought through but  where he is absolutely right is of course that in spite of the headlines and the apocalypse scenarios, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation”.

The work at Fukushima is difficult and hazardous  and it will test the courage and ingenuity of many – but it goes on even if all the headlines are gone     —– Kyodo News:

Work to restore power and crucial cooling functions resumed Tuesday morning at the crisis-hit reactors at the quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, following suspension Monday after smoke was detected at its No. 2 and No. 3 reactors, its operator said.

Firefighters and the Self-Defense Forces also prepared to restart a mission later in the day to spray a massive amount of coolant water onto spent nuclear fuel pools at the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Although white smoke, possibly steam, was found to be continuously billowing from the buildings of the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors, the utility known as TEPCO found it does not obstruct electricity restoration work as radiation levels did not particularly surge at the site.

An external power source was connected to the No. 4 reactor in the morning, making it the fifth of the plant’s six reactors to have regained a power supply needed for the restoration of equipment such as a ventilation system to filter radioactive substances from the air and some measuring tools at the control room.

TEPCO aims to restore power systems to revive some key facilities such as data measuring equipment and functions at a control room by Wednesday for the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors and by Thursday for the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, at a press conference.

Does France have special information about Fukushima?

March 15, 2011

o600 CET : Wednesday 16th: France is now urging its nationals in Tokyo to leave Japan or head to the south of the country, Reuters reports. It says Paris has asked the Air France carrier to provide planes for the evacuation. The BBC’s Chris Hogg in Tokyo says the evacuation will begin on Thursday. Two French planes are already on their way to Japan.

It could be that France has access to some special information that the problems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plants are much worse than anything being reported in Japan or by the IAEA, but the almost orchestrated negativity from French Agencies is noteworthy.

Politicians and agencies are positive about support for Japan regarding the earthquake and the tsunami, but the negativity  is focused around the Fukushima nuclear plant and is particularly noticeable from Agence France Presse, the French Nuclear Agency and French Radio.

I tend to be extremely suspicious of  French nuclear politics and cannot help feeling that there is an agenda here which involves being as negative as possible about the Japanese nuclear industry to later show up how the French nuclear industry is so much better.

  1. France’s nuclear safety authority says it classifies the Fukushima plant accident as level six. The maximum is level seven, used only once for the 1986 Chernobyl accident, Reuters reports. The Japanese Nuclear Agency has classified the event as Level 4.
  2. Europe’s Energy Commissioner says Japan’s nuclear disaster is an “apocalypse”, adding that Tokyo has almost lost control of events at the Fukushima power plant, AFP report.
  3. AFP reports that several countries are screening passengers on flights arriving from Japan.
  4. Radio France to withdraw staff in Japan after nuclear accidents: Dow Jones

But at the same time France’s Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has said: “We expressed our admiration for the dignity and the courage shown by the Japanese during this unprecedented ordeal. We expressed our confidence in the way the Japanese authorities have faced the aftermath of the disaster with such efficiency, which the whole world has recognised.”

European Climate Action: Don’t know what it will cost, don’t know what it will achieve

March 10, 2011

They don’t know why and what it will cost and they don’t know what it will achieve but, The European Commission on Tuesday unveiled a roadmap for building a low-carbon economy by 2050, proposing an 80 percent to 95 percent cut of greenhouse gas emissions from the 1990 levels.

“We need to start the transition towards a competitive low-carbon economy now. The longer we wait, the higher the cost will be,” Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action, said when presenting the roadmap to European Union (EU) lawmakers in Strasbourg, France.

The roadmap described the cost-effective pathway to reach the EU’s objective of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent to 95 percent of the 1990 levels by 2050. It recommended Europe should achieve it largely through domestic measures since by mid-century international credits to offset emissions will be less widely available than today.

In the meantime Jill Duggan from the European Commission’s Directorate General of Climate Action and the EC’s National Expert on Carbon Markets and Climate Change is in Australia to tell them how good Europe’s emission trading system is and why they should do something similar.  In a radio interview she demonstrated her ignorance.

Jill Duggan

Andrew Bolt

Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 01:38pmDuggan’s utter inability to answer is a scandal – an indictment of global warming politics today. (Listen here):

AB:  Can I just ask; your target is to cut Europe’s emissions by 20% by 2020?

JD:  Yes.

AB:  Can you tell me how much – to the nearest billions – is that going to cost Europe do you think?

JD:  No, I can’t tell you but I do know that the modelling shows that it’s cheaper to start earlier rather than later, so  it’s cheaper to do it now rather than put off action.

AB:  Right.  You wouldn’t quarrel with Professor Richard Tol – who’s not a climate sceptic – but is professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin?  He values it at about $250 billion.  You wouldn’t quarrel with that?

JD:  I probably would actually.  I mean, I don’t know.  It’s very, very difficult to quantify.  You get different changes, don’t you?  And one of the things that’s happening in Europe now is that many governments – such as the UK government and the German government – would like the targets to be tougher because they see it as a real stimulus to the economy.

AB:  Right.  Well you don’t know but you think it isn’t $250 billion.

JD:  I think you could get lots of different academics coming up with lots of different figures.

AB:  That’s right.  You don’t know but that’s the figure that I’ve got in front of me.  For that investment.  Or for whatever the investment is.  What’s your estimation of how much – because the object ultimately of course is to lower the world’s temperatures – what sort of temperature reduction do you imagine from that kind of investment?

JD:  Well, what we do know is that to have an evens chance of keeping temperature increases globally to 2°C – so that’s increases – you’ve got to reduce emissions globally by 50% by 2050.

AB:  Yes, I accept that, but from the $250 billion – or whatever you think the figure is – what do you think Europe can achieve with this 20% reduction in terms of cutting the world’s temperature?  Because that’s, in fact, what’s necessary.  What do you think the temperature reduction will be?

JD:  Well, obviously, Europe accounts for 14% of global emissions.  It’s 500 or 550 million people.  On its own it cannot do that.  That is absolutely clear.

AB:  Have you got a figure in your mind?  You don’t know the cost.  Do you know the result?

JD:  I don’t have a cost figure in my mind. Nor, one thing I do know, obviously, is that Europe acting alone will not solve this problem alone.

AB:  So if I put a figure to you – I find it odd that you don’t know the cost and you don’t know the outcome – would you quarrel with this assessment:  that by 2100 – if you go your way and if you’re successful – the world’s temperatures will fall by 0.05°C?  Would you agree with that?

JD:  Sorry, can you just pass that by me again?  You’re saying that if Europe acts alone?

AB:  If just Europe alone – for this massive investment – will lower the world’s temperature with this 20% target (if it sustains that until the end of this century) by 0.05°C.  Would you quarrel with that?

JD:  Well, I think the climate science would not be that precise.  Would it?

AB:  Ah, no, actually it is, Jill.  You see this is what I’m curious about;  that you’re in charge of a massive program to re-jig an economy.  You don’t know what it costs.  And you don’t know what it’ll achieve.

JD:  Well, I think you can look at lots of modelling which will come up with lots of different costs.

AB:  Well what’s your modelling?  That’s the one that everyone’s quoting.  What’s your modelling?

JD:  Well, ah, ah. Let me talk about what we have done in Europe and what we have seen as the benefits.  In Europe, in Germany you could look at, there’s over a million new jobs that have been created by tackling climate change, by putting in place climate policies.  In the UK there’s many hundreds of thousand of jobs.

Full article and transcript is here.

The demonisation of carbon dioxide will probably continue for another 5 to 10 years until it becomes apparent that we are actually in a cooling period and therefore that man-made carbon dioxide is irrelevant and immaterial.

Penn State whitewash of Michael Mann exposed

March 9, 2011

Two things which were were always pretty clear have now been proven.

  1. Michael Mann of the Hockey Stick Illusion and the cherry picking of data did indeed ask his friends and colleagues to delete incriminating emails, and
  2. The so-called Penn State inquiry into Mann and his actions cherry picked the evidence to give a pre-determined result.

A federal government inspector general has revealed prima facie proof that the so-called independent inquiries widely if implausibly described as clearing the ClimateGate principals of wrongdoing were, in fact, whitewashes. This has been confirmed to Senate offices. It will not be released to the public for some time because the investigation is ongoing.

The document, an interview transcript, will put an end to the foolish talk of anything resembling a ClimateGate “inquiry” having taken place. It will also invite a real inquiry into the affair. Expect fireworks, as the one such effort, by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, is being fought hysterically by Big Science and Big Academia.

Critically, it also begs questions of Penn State University, which conducted one of the three supposed inquiries into ClimateGate. The key point is that the Penn State investigators never interviewed a principal who was able to confirm or deny a key charge against “Hockey Stick” lead author of “Hide the Decline” infamy Michael Mann. This individual has now been interviewed, and what he told federal investigators has indicted Mann and Penn State. The inspector general’s report specifically reveals Penn State’s wagon-circlers to have been at best comically negligent/inept in allowing Mann to not answer the damning charge they were tasked with examining: did he delete or ask others to delete records? At worst, they were complicit in the cover-up.

Simply by interviewing Mann’s colleague Eugene Wahl, PSU would have exposed Mann’s “answer” for what it was (and wasn’t). Such an interview was obviously necessary for any inquiry. Penn State chose not to conduct it, for its own reasons. A federal inspector general has now conducted it. And the result is damning of both Mann and the parties that chose not to interview Wahl.

As background, Phil Jones in the United Kingdom asked Mann, now at Penn State, by email to delete records being sought under the UK’s Freedom of Information Act, and to get a colleague to do so as well:

Mike:
Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment — minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

“Gene” is Eugene Wahl, who now works for the federal government.

Mann’s terse reply included in pertinent part:

I’ll contact Gene about this ASAP

Now, from Penn State’s supposed inquiry and exoneration of Michael Mann:

Allegation 2: Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?

Finding 2. After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee finding is that there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data related to AR4, as suggested by Dr. Phil Jones. Dr. Mann has stated that he did not delete emails in response to Dr. Jones’ request. Further, Dr. Mann produced upon request a full archive of his emails in and around the time of the preparation of AR4. The archive contained e-mails related to AR4.

If the above excerpt accurately reflects Mann’s testimony, both Mann’s “answer” and his peers’ acceptance of it ought to raise red flags. Penn State asked Mann and only Mann if he destroyed records or was indirectly involved in destroying records. Mann said only that he did not destroy records. And that did it. Even though Phil Jones asked Mann to instruct Wahl to do so as well.

Related:

To serve Mann

Wahl Transcript Excerpt